New statement from Scott Pelley:
There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.
The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.
“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.
The waste is heartbreaking.
Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.
For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.
At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.
I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.
Scott Pelley
This week on @ClickHereShow's radio show: "Reverse Engineering Us"
AI used to help us understand the world. Now, it’s learning to understand… us. Not just what we click or buy— but how we think. What we want. Even what we feel.
Three stories about machines that don’t just analyze reality… they hold up a mirror. And what that reflection reveals— about power, perception… and who we become when technology starts to see us clearly. #AI #tech #science
LISTEN: https://t.co/50VwJGdnPe
(@prx@TheRecord_Media@RecordedFuture@NPRDina)
After #Tehran throttled the internet during nationwide protests in 2022, Iranians started preparing a workaround: @Starlink.
Smugglers brought thousands of satellite terminals into the country. So when war began and the regime tried to cut its people off from the rest of the world, they still found a signal.
LISTEN to @ClickHereShow: https://t.co/q7reYmTRHq
#IranWar #cyber #tech @prx
.@husskhalid Dear Mr. Khalid, My name is Sean Powers. I'm a journalist in the U.S. with the radio show @ClickHereShow. I'm working on a story and would love to get in contact with you about your work on Russian military recruitment. I just emailed @VOCALAfrica_ with my request.
@aahmadiyan hi! I’m a journalist with @ClickHereShow. Would love to talk to you about the Iran blackouts. Just sent you messages over Signal and WhatsApp.
This week on @ClickHereShow:
What happens when you cross a marine biologist with a machine-learning engineer? You get someone who thinks humpback whales might be saying something meaningful — and that artificial intelligence could help us finally understand it.
LISTEN: https://t.co/3EIDKyJrxk
(@prx@RecordedFuture@TheRecord_Media@NPRDina)
We're excited to announce that starting this week, @ClickHereShow becomes a weekly hour-long public radio show.
We'll take part of a digital world that’s easy to overlook… and slow it down.
What should we be covering? What questions do you have? You can leave us a voicemail on our toll free line at 661-5-CH-TALK (661-524-8255).
We’ll respond… with a story… with a shout out… maybe we’ll even put it on the air.
https://t.co/YmoxTaUoo2
(@TheRecord_Media@RecordedFuture@NPRDina@prx)
Online, a new strain of extremism is taking root — one that isn’t fueled by ideology so much as impulse, spectacle, and the thrill of causing harm.
This week on @ClickHereShow, we trace how networks like 764 turn chaos into a calling, who gets pulled in, and why the usual tools for fighting extremism keep missing the mark.
LISTEN: https://t.co/hDa0RrI88z
(@NPRDina@TheRecord_Media@RecordedFuture@prx)
Thank you, @RNicholasBurns, for your continued call for Ekpar’s release. If China cares about improving the US-China relationship, as it claims to do, then it can demonstrate goodwill by freeing Ekpar, an alumnus of the @StateDept program & honoring people to people exchange.
#Car theft has changed. No more hot-wiring — just hacking. On @ClickHereShow, we talk with white-hat hacker Kamel Ghali about how our cars became computers on wheels… and why safety hasn’t kept pace with the #tech.
LISTEN: https://t.co/jltT8NMGsT @TheRecord_Media@RecordedFuture@prx
Hey @DavidDodda_ I'm a journalist with @ClickHereShow. Working on a story on NK APT's, and would love to chat with you. I DM'ed you more details. Have time this week to connect over Zoom?
Even the safest automakers can get tripped up by code. On @ClickHereShow, we look at what happened when a #Volvo software update went wrong — and what it reveals about the risks of “move fast and break things” on the open road. #tech#cars
LISTEN: https://t.co/psincZReqZ
(@TheRecord_Media@RecordedFuture@prx@NPRDina)
The Espionage Act was written more than a century ago to stop spies and saboteurs. But over time, its reach has quietly expanded — from enemy agents to insiders, and now, possibly, to the press itself.
@Georgetown Law’s @steve_vladeck tells us how a law built for wartime secrecy could become one of the most powerful tools in Washington’s arsenal.
LISTEN: https://t.co/su2dsDFmJN
@cwpollock Hi Chris! My name is Sean Powers. I produce @ClickHereShow, a tech news podcast. Working on a story and would love to talk to you about what happened with your Volvo a couple years back following the software update. What's the best way to reach you?
@Gundo_OG@pitdesi Nathan, I'd love to talk to you about this. I'm a journalist with a tech news podcast called @ClickHereShow. What's the best way to reach you?