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Top CBS newsman erupts at Weiss in 'heated meeting': 'She's murdering 60 Minutes'

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley confronted new executive producer Nick Bilton and another CBS executive Monday morning in what Guardian US media reporter Jeremy Barr described as a "heated meeting," pushing back forcefully on last week's mass firings at the storied newsmagazine.Pelley didn't mince words about who he held responsible."She's murdering 60 Minutes," Pelley said of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, according to Barr. "She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that."Producers were present and showed support for Pelley during the meeting, Barr said.The firings Pelley pushed back on included veteran correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, fellow correspondent Cecilia Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, and executive editor Draggan Mihailovich — all ousted last Thursday as Weiss installed Bilton, a tech journalist and TV news outsider, to lead the broadcast.Pelley's outrage has been building for months. When Weiss pulled Alfonsi's CECOT segment just hours before its scheduled December broadcast — after it had cleared every internal editorial and legal review — Pelley lashed out in a staff meeting. "She needs to take her job a little bit more seriously," he said at the time, according to The New Yorker.On Wednesday night, just hours before Alfonsi was formally fired, Pelley saluted her from the stage at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards at Lincoln Center.Critics have accused Weiss of spiking the CECOT story to placate the Trump administration, a charge her allies deny. Alfonsi, who has hired a litigator, called her ouster "a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting."

Internal emails show officials alarmed by rushed plan to privatize portion of DC park

The Trump administration repeatedly overruled internal objections from National Park Service officials as it pushed to lease a large swath of public parkland in Washington, D.C., to a private operator. Internal records obtained through a public records request reveal that Park Service employees raised repeated legal, environmental and ethical alarms about a plan to lease nearly 40 acres of Rock Creek Park, including the Rock Creek Tennis Center, home of the long-running DC Open tournament, reported the Washington Post."The park vehemently disagrees with these lease boundaries," officials wrote on draft lease documents. "This lease proposal does not meet these legal requirements."Officials warned the proposal violated federal rules protecting public access to parklands, threatened the habitat of an endangered species and exceeded the boundaries that even the expected lease winner had requested, but the documents suggest the process was shaped around the interests of a well-connected businessman before bidding even opened.Internal emails show Park Service officials were coordinating with Mark Ein, the Washington businessman who owns the DC Open and has long sought upgrades to the aging tennis facility, before the government had even formally solicited bids.One Interior official proposed lease boundaries that went well beyond what Ein himself was understood to be seeking, the Post reported, and park resources manager raised the discrepancy directly in an email, asking why officials were "being directed to include everything in Brightwood" when Ein had already indicated what he was seeking.Environmental concerns centered on the Hays Spring amphipod, a federally protected crustacean found only in Rock Creek Park. Of the seven known pools where the species exists, three fall within the proposed lease boundary. Officials warned that redevelopment could undo more than $1 million already spent on protections for the species.One senior official wrote that she could not see how the agency could determine the lease would not interfere with park protection or visitor enjoyment — and warned it could be vulnerable to legal challenge.Despite those warnings, a National Capital Region director acknowledged that "leadership has decided to go with the larger footprint."The Interior Department denied any wrongdoing, saying the lease "followed all laws and regulations," and Ein's spokeswoman declined to comment.Months after the administration said it hoped to have a lease in place by March 1, no deal has been announced and federal officials have offered no public explanation for the delay.

House Dems mocked after latest social media post backfires online within minutes

House Democrats continue to fail at effectively utilizing social media to combat President Donald Trump’s agenda. On Thursday, the official House Dems X account railed against Immigration […]

Malaysia Won’t Rush Defense Spending, Eyes Asymmetric Warfare

Malaysia will not rush to increase its defense budget despite US pressure for partners to become more self-reliant, as the Southeast Asian nation seeks to balance military modernization with other critical sectors, Defense Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said.

'Wacky': CBS insiders flabbergasted as Trump-aligned chief throws wrench in '60 Minutes'

Bari Weiss, the conservative commentator turned editor-in-chief of CBS, sparked a wave of outrage when she appointed Nick Bilton in charge of the gold standard investigative reporting show "60 Minutes," according to a Page Six report — and many are afraid she'll go even farther.Per the report, Weiss was so confident in her decision that "she wasn’t looking at any other candidates," and now staffers at the network "already fear Weiss could have a more unexpected move up her sleeve, bringing her sister, The Free Press co-founder Suzy Weiss, onto '60 Minutes.'"All of this comes as Weiss already cleaned house at "60 Minutes," terminating reporter Sharyn Alfonsi, who went to war with the network after Weiss tried to delay explosive reporting about the torture conditions inside a foreign megaprison Trump was sending deportees to, as well as a number of other key figures.“Bari was given the green light to make wholesale changes after she arrived, so people have been bracing for a significant move for a long time,” one CBS insider told Page Six. ”And now, she finally is making moves.”Others simply had no understanding of why Weiss chose Bilton to head up the show, with another insider saying, “People are stunned. They are like, what? A tech reporter? It’s a little wacky. You don’t need a ton of experience to make great TV, but it is tricky to put a print reporter in a job like that. It seems like the world is upside down, [and] there is a bit of mythology going on with the people and the place. CBS News is not the one that Edward R. Murrow ran, and it hasn’t been for a really long time.”All of this comes as Weiss, whose appointment of Tony Dokoupil as nightly anchor has met similar outrage, and become persona non grata in many media industry circles. She was openly shamed at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards in Manhattan this week.

Target intros creepy ‘niceness score’ for retail staff customer service efforts

The supermarket store Target reportedly intends to start evaluating its workers based on how well or nicely they interact with customers. This move was inspired by new […]

'It’s over': CBS News staffers reel at Bari Weiss' '60 Minutes' 'gutting'

The mood inside the "60 Minutes" newsroom on Manhattan's 57th Street was one of devastation Thursday after CBS News head Bari Weiss purged the program's leadership — ousting beloved executives and announcing an inexperienced tech journalist as the new executive producer, despite the show finishing its season with a massive rating increase.According to more than a half-dozen current and former staffers speaking with media watchdog Status, the firings triggered an emotional crisis inside the iconic newsmagazine. "It's like a funeral in here," one insider told Status founder Oliver Darcy. "People are devastated."Executive producer Tanya Simon was summoned into a meeting Thursday morning with Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski, the report said. She was relieved of her duties on the spot.Senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich was also fired as part of the purge.As news of the firings spread, Weiss and Cibrowski announced Nick Bilton, a technology journalist with no television news or managerial experience, as the program's next executive producer — only the fifth in the show's nearly 60-year history.Despite "60 Minutes" performing "exceptionally well by virtually every measure," Weiss and Cibrowski claimed the program "requires a new approach," Status reported.According to the report, staffers exchanged angry texts expressing heartbreak and fury at Weiss and network leadership for dismantling a program they treasure."They're gutting us," one "60 Minutes" staffer told Status. "It's over. I don't see how '60' will be able to function after this. Goodnight and good luck, m-----------s"Another senior producer expressed the widespread sentiment. "Everyone—100% — thought Tanya and Draggan did exemplary jobs. It hurts. We feel violated."It remains unclear whether additional staffers and correspondents will choose to leave on their own. Veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl has not yet renewed her contract, with her status remaining "up in the air," according to sources familiar with the matter. Other senior producers also have contracts expiring soon and will need to decide if they stay, Status reported.Former host Steve Kroft, reflecting on the devastation, offered a grim assessment: "Since I retired, I often wondered what would happen to '60 Minutes.' But I never expected it would be executed by the President of the United States. The show as people have known it for 50 years is dead. Now could it be resurrected? I don't know," he told Darcy.

Morning Minute: The Aesthetics of Failure