What To Know
- New 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton is reportedly earning much more than his predecessor Tanya Simon.
- Bilton’s appointment sparked controversy and criticism from former staff, including a heated confrontation with correspondent Scott Pelley, who was subsequently fired.
- Despite dissatisfaction over recent staff changes, remaining correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim have chosen to stay with the program.
It’s insult to career injury for Tanya Simon, a former executive producer of 60 Minutes. Days into Nick Bilton’s tumultuous gig as Simon’s replacement at the CBS newsmagazine, a new report claims he’s earning far more money than she did doing the same job.
Bilton is making $2.5 million per year in his 60 Minutes position, $1 million more than what Simon was earning, according to Page Six Hollywood.
Simon lost her job at 60 Minutes in late May, alongside correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, per Variety. In a memo to staffers, Simon said that “leadership has decided it is time for a new chapter.” CBS News is now under the leadership of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, and the news organization is part of Paramount Skydance, the CEO of which is David Ellison.
Amid Simon’s exit, Weiss praised Bilton, a former New York Times technology columnist and Vanity Fair contributor, as “one of the most entrepreneurial journalists of our time and the perfect leader for one of the most entrepreneurial news brands of all time.” She added that Bilton “will bring his deep investigative experience and understanding of the technological moment we’re in to 60 Minutes so that its important journalism comes to life for all audiences.”
But former 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley questioned Bilton’s suitability for the executive-producer job in a staff meeting on Monday, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times. In a heated exchange with Bilton, Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering 60 Minutes” and making “catastrophic changes” at CBS Evening News, said Weiss has “no qualifications for her job,” and said Bilton has “slender qualification” for his job.
The following day, Bilton sent a termination letter to Pelley. In the letter, obtained by the Times, Bilton wrote, “Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. … Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear.”
In a memo on Friday, obtained by Entertainment Weekly, remaining 60 Minutes correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim said they’ll stay with the program to keep it going, though they’re upset about the firings of Pelley, Alfonsi, and Vega.
“We want to express how sorry we are that these principled, fair, and honest journalists were treated so shabbily, with such indecency,” they wrote. “But, we have decided to stay on. We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure. That is simply, categorically, not the case.”