60 Minutes reporter Scott Pelley finally experienced what countless have after a buyout, a new operating model that craps on people and organizational quality in favor of financial gimmickery, incapable technology, a purposeful reduction in quality and complete/total subservience.
NYPo reported:
In a Monday morning meet-and-greet gone wrong, Pelley took aim at CBS News Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, claiming she was “murdering ’60 Minutes,'” and that she “was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that,” according to a source briefed on the meeting.
“She has no qualifications for her job,” Pelley said of Weiss, according to the source. “The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”
I'd hoped for decades that the private equity underwriter (PEU) model, which hollowed out so many workplaces. would be the focus of story after story. TechGods foisted "magic" software solutions that required hours on hold with IT to solve the most basic problems.
PEU founders became policy making billionaires, so elected officials remained on the sidelines when they had power to intervene. TechGods noticed and adopted the PEU playbook requiring avowed Libertarians to become big government budget parasites.
Eight years ago two private equity firms, TPG Capital and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe purchased a majority interest in my employer. They brought a new operating model which drove our customer service scores into the basement. Management never said a word about declining scores even though they were displayed on the wall of our conference room.
They slashed staff and gave us a "magic" new computer/software setup that was supposed to be all things to all people. It spied on us. It ripped us off in terms or pay and mileage. The Department of Labor did not care.
But most of all they took away our voice. They never asked for feedback on the changes, their management, their incapable systems or their new priorities which grated with our longstanding pride in the quality of our work.
CBS News took away Scott Pelley's voice and he had none of that. His statement included:
... 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.
That story is as old as 2010 and as fresh as today.
The PEU/TechGod class are not leaders, who would have made ample room for people to be heard. They control. It's their imposition. No quarter is given in their pursuit of profits.
The Lords of Capital designed the influence system, recently copied by their far brasher TechGod brethren. Together, they make federal policy and endlessly tap Uncle Sam's wallet for billions.
Scott Pelley's new boss is journalist to the TechGods. Apparently, listening is not one of his skills,
Thank God the TechGod class is so crude and transparent in their machinations. The Lords of Capital operated with stealth to the point that one had to dig to uncover their conflicts of interest and takeover of both political teams.
As for management under PEU/TechGods, honest feedback is not appreciated. They paint reasoned criticism as unhinged ranting that leads directly to violence.
“We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he (Pelley) chose.”--statement from CBS Bari Weiss
CBS News now knows the story, however they can no longer run it. The bosses' version, however fictional, must be upheld.
They characterize people as "so angry." Well, there's a guy in the New Testament who tossed tables and he is widely worshiped.
Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod brethren. Increasingly, more are one.
The PEU/TechGod class came for investigative journalism. For that, all of America suffers.
Update 6-4-26: This sounds like our workplace after six months of PEU majority ownership. It's from 60 Minutes staff:
“Morale is terrible throughout the company. No one knows what to believe or who is working against them. It has never been like this before. The staff in the newsroom all feel like they cannot trust anyone. How can you work like that?”
The only safe communication we had was a stroll outside without our cell phones. Otherwise, management had the means and meanness to monitor everything. CBS legends have
spoken out against the decimation of
60 Minutes.
The story that played out in thousands of workplaces, the Lords of Capital savaging their liege, has come for 60 Minutes.
It is but another step in Trump II's final public ratings implosion as PEU/TechGods seal their rightly power over all. If you control the investigators you control what gets investigated.
60 Minutes veteran Steve Kroft stated the show "no longer exists" following the series of firings which culminated in Scott Pelley's termination. He noted:
“This is journalistic interference. It makes no business sense whatsoever. It’s the highest-rated news program on television, and it has been that way for more than 50 years.”
That's what a PEU/TechGod modernization does. It makes something good and of substance into a surface reflection of their mendacity and greed.
With the PEU/TechGod reliance on repeating, layered income streams and addicting customers, how long before 60 Minutes has a Kalshi, Polymarket or Truth Social tie up?
Part of good leadership is diffusing situations, and when they start to spiral out of control, it feels like a rookie move to throw a log on the fire.
Good leadership went the way of "no jerks" in management, having one full time job with a livable salary, actual customer service and declaring conflicts of interest. The PEU/TechGod class trashed every one of them.
