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We’re talking about 60 Minutes again because there was an earthquake in journalism yesterday. I’m leaving this edition unlocked because I want everyone to know what Scott Pelley did. It’s inspiring. It’s important.
And it’s very much what we try to do at The Bulwark every day. We don’t have a lot of power—we don’t control a secret police force, or the federal government, or the Supreme Court. We are a dissident movement. Which means that the power we do have is all about truth.
Saying true things is powerful. Refusing to go along with polite fictions is powerful. That’s what today’s Triad is about. And I think you’re going to feel energized when you read it.
If this is what you value from media organizations, then come and join us. Stand with the truth. Use your power.
Scott Pelley Is the Hero We Need
What we can learn from the ‘60 Minutes’ reporter who went to the mattresses.
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Before we start: Later this week I’ll be answering your questions on politics, news, parenting, life, baseball, pinball, watches, backpacks, etc. in a new Triad Video Mailbag. Get your questions in today, please. Go here, read the comments, upvote the questions you like, and then leave your own question.
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1. Gone in 60 Minutes
Four days after Bari Weiss decapitated the leadership of 60 Minutes, she sent her new executive producer, Nick Bilton, to meet with the remaining staff. What happened will reverberate in journalism for years.
In full view of the newsroom Scott Pelley took Bilton and Weiss (in absentia) to the woodshed.
The best account is from Oliver Darcy at Status, who had a recording, and the short version is that Pelley:
Asked Bilton to explain the firings of correspondents and reporters.
Bilton absurdly tried to pretend that he didn’t know anything about these firings.
Observed that Bilton had only the most slender qualifications for the job of EP and that Weiss had no qualifications for running CBS News.
The most important part of the showdown, however, was this:
“Bari loves this institution,” Bilton told staffers at one point during the highly contentious meeting. “She loves 60 Minutes.”
“She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley countered. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it—and she’s doing exactly that.”
Truth to power.
People sometimes ask me why I’m so hung up on Bari Weiss and the answer is that it’s because her project is essentially the same as Donald Trump’s project. She is a corrupter.
Weiss has attempted to do to journalism what Trump has done to American government: Transform an ancient, messy, imperfect—but basically functional—web of institutions into a corrupt gangland organization. To do so, both Weiss and Trump have depended on the opposition refusing to notice what they are doing and—when they do notice it—to accept ludicrous rationalizations.
Ergo: Trump turns Elon Musk and DOGE loose on USAID and says it’s about saving money. Trump directs his attorney general to indict his enemies and says it’s about stopping the weaponization of government. Trump has ICE agents assault people and says it’s about deporting hardened criminals.
Or: Weiss dismantles 60 Minutes and pretends it’s about getting more views on digital.¹
Every time someone goes along with this make-believe by treating it as a valid point of you—just like, your opinion, man—they contribute to the corruption.