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Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d received a hostile welcome Monday from the CBS News program\u2019s most respected correspondent, Scott Pelley, as the staff is still reeling over last week\u2019s firings.<\/a><\/p>\n In the first staff meeting since Bilton was named last week, Pelley accused CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss of \u201cmurdering\u201d the country\u2019s most-watched news program, which recently finished the TV season with a 9% ratings increase. Recordings of the meeting were circulated to journalists.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is murdering \u201860 Minutes,\u2019\u201d Pelley said. \u201cShe does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she\u2019s been doing exactly that.\u201d Pelley also attacked the credentials of Bilton, a former New York Times tech reporter and documentary filmmaker, who, like Weiss, has no previous experience running a TV news operation.<\/p>\n Bilton was named to replace Tanya Simon on Thursday, an unexpected move that also came with the firings of correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.<\/a> The moves were made by Weiss, who has targeted the prestigious program for changes since she arrived at the network in the fall.<\/a> <\/p>\n David Ellison, chief executive of CBS News parent Paramount, brought in Weiss \u2014 a skeptic of legacy media \u2014 with a mandate to move the division more to the political center. But many critics have seen the move as an attempt to placate the Trump administration while Ellison seeks regulatory approval<\/a> for his deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery,<\/p>\n \u201c60 Minutes\u201d has long been in Trump\u2019s crosshairs. The president sued the program last year over the editing of an interview with his 2024 opponent former Vice President Kamala Harris. The suit was settled<\/a> just ahead of the Federal Communications Commission clearing the way for the takeover of Paramount by Ellison\u2019s Skydance Media.<\/p>\n One person close to \u201c60 Minutes\u201d said attendees at the meeting in the Manhattan West Side offices described it as something they had never witnessed in their careers. The confrontation \u2014 and the applause Pelley received from his colleagues during the meeting \u2014 also demonstrates how CBS News management may have underestimated the staff\u2019s devotion to the program, now nearing its sixth decade, that has long been considered the most powerful and respected platform in TV journalism.<\/p>\n A representative for CBS News declined to comment on the meeting.<\/p>\n Pelley holds especially high stature at the network because of his work over the years in dangerous war zones. When he was an anchor at \u201cCBS Evening News,\u201d he displayed photos of CBS News journalists who have died in the line of duty for the network going back to George Polk, who was killed during Greece\u2019s civil war in 1948.<\/p>\n People close to CBS News management said both Bilton and Weiss reached out to Pelley last week to discuss the changes and their plans for the program\u2019s future but he did not respond. <\/p>\n One CBS News veteran said the tense meeting \u201creads like Scott wants to be fired.\u201d<\/p>\n Weiss has maintained she is committed to expanding the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d brand so it generates viewing and revenue outside its Sunday night broadcast. But she has also clashed with producers and correspondents over the handling of stories such as Alfonsi\u2019s report<\/a> on the Trump administration\u2019s use of harsh El Salvador prisons to hold undocumented Venezuelan migrants.<\/p>\n Alfonsi\u2019s message to colleagues saying the segment was held for political reasons led to her dismissal from the program. <\/p>\n