CBS News insiders worry how 60 Minutes will endure after firings: ‘What are they going to put on the air?’

After the dramatic termination of Scott Pelley, four of the show’s seven full-time correspondents are out under Bari Weiss’ leadership

F or many years now, CBS News employees entering the network’s New York headquarters have walked by a poster showing the seven correspondents who have helped keep 60 Minutes the most-watched show in news for 52 straight television seasons: Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Bill Whitaker, Anderson Cooper, Sharyn Alfonsi, Jon Wertheim and Cecilia Vega.

Over the last tumultuous week , three of those correspondents – Pelley, Alfonsi and Vega – have been fired. Cooper – who is also a CNN primetime anchor – announced in February that he is leaving the show. Amid the most significant uproar in the show’s lengthy history, CBS News staffers and 60 Minutes veterans now have two central questions: Who will be left to make the show’s 59th season, which begins in September? And will it still feel like 60 Minutes?

In addition to the departure of four of the show’s seven full-time correspondents, CBS News fired the show’s executive producer, Tanya Simon, Draggan Mihailovich, the executive editor, and other key staffers. Nick Bilton , a veteran journalist without broadcast management experience, was hired to replace Simon as executive producer.

“What are they going to put on the air in three months?” asked one CBS News staffer who was not authorized to comment.

“It is not going to look like 60 Minutes in the fall,” a show insider predicted.

Some have speculated that Stahl, 84, and Whitaker, 74, could also choose to leave the show after their colleagues were ousted – though they have not yet commented on their status. As they had with Pelley, who did not engage, Weiss and Bilton have made outreach efforts to the three remaining full-time correspondents since Thursday, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

“It’s a deep, deep wound,” a second CBS News staffer said, explaining the “tight” connections between the show’s staffers, many of whom have worked together for decades.