{"id":2610148,"date":"2026-06-03T13:08:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scott-pelley-was-a-highly-paid-propagandist\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T13:11:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:11:36","slug":"scott-pelley-was-a-highly-paid-propagandist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scott-pelley-was-a-highly-paid-propagandist\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Pelley Was A Highly Paid Propagandist"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fscott-pelley-was-a-highly-paid-propagandist%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2610148&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>CBS News fired 60 Minutes correspondent Scott pelley, and the piece argues the move reflected a long pattern: it claims Pelley functioned more like a political propagandist than a neutral journalist. It says the firing followed a \u201cheated\u201d internal dispute in which Pelley accused Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss of trying too \u201ckill\u201d 60 Minutes while targeting staff decisions, including the firing of correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi over disagreements tied to a segment about deportations.<\/p>\n<p>The article then highlights examples it uses to support its claim, including interviews where it alleges Pelley softened or framed controversial wrongdoing favorably for powerful figures (such as treating Andrew McCabe\u2019s leaks and perjury as confusion rather than misconduct, and helping Merrick Garland\u2019s DOJ messaging rather than pressing him on politicization concerns). It also criticizes editing choices in a segment about book bans and Moms for Liberty,as well as an earlier interview with Marc Elias without disclosing his Democratic political ties. it points to Pelley\u2019s Wake Forest commencement remarks as further evidence of activist-style rhetoric rather than journalistic restraint.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>CBS News fired Scott Pelley on Tuesday, and his reaction only confirmed what we already knew \u2014 Pelley was a high paid propagandist masquerading as a journalist.<\/p>\n<p>NBC News <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/business\/media\/cbs-news-fires-60-minutes-correspondent-scott-pelley-rcna348176\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a> that Pelley\u2019s firing came after he accused Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss of \u201cmurdering\u201d <em>60 Minutes<\/em> during a \u201cheated\u201d meeting with a new <em>60 Minutes<\/em> producer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe does not love this place,\u201d Pelley reportedly told the producer. \u201cShe was brought in to kill it, and she\u2019s been doing exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The dispute reportedly involved the firing of correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who clashed with Weiss last year after Weiss postponed the release of a segment about the Trump administration\u2019s deportation of Venezuelan men sent to prisons in El Salvador. Notably, the original segment was heavily biased and failed to include statements from the White House and Department of Homeland Security, despite the story involving the two entities. Weiss insisted the story include responses from both entities.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, Weiss insisted on basic journalism. <\/p>\n<p>But apparently that was controversial enough \u2014 and partially worth losing his career over \u2014 for Pelley. <\/p>\n<p>Following his firing, Pelley accused the network of firing him for political reasons in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DylanByers\/status\/2062013125554246140\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">statement<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration,\u201d Pelley said. \u201cThe waste is heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast month, <em>60 Minutes<\/em> lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/scott-pelley-throws-tantrum-after-cbs-fires-him-they-wanted-favor-with-the-trump-administration\/\" title=\"Scott Pelley Throws Tantrum After CBS Fires Him: They Wanted &#039;Favor with the Trump Administration&#039;\">cruelly fired<\/a> 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Pelley\u2019s career doesn\u2019t really reflect the commitment to \u201cfairness against the forces of political bias\u201d that he now claims to champion. <\/p>\n<p>A journalist\u2019s job is to challenge powerful people by using interview opportunities to ask the pressing questions on the minds of the American people and then allow viewers to make their own conclusions. A propagandist\u2019s job is to selectively present information and frame stories to guide their audience toward a preferred conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>Pelley did the latter more often than not.<\/p>\n<p>During a 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/tomselliott\/status\/2062154362252624020?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">interview<\/a> with Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director who leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and then lied about it under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/mccabe-says-trumps-message-demanding-peace-and-denouncing-violence-is-actually-coded-language-and-a-dog-whistle-to-his-base-to-fight-video\/\" title=\"McCabe Says Trump\u2019s Message Demanding Peace and Denouncing Violence is Actually ...Coded Language\u201d and a ...Dog Whistle\u201d to His Base to Fight (VIDEO)\">oath multiple times<\/a>, Pelley framed the leak as if it were a praise-worthy effort to \u201ccorrect\u201d a story that was in the public interest. He also accepted McCabe\u2019s excuse that he was merely \u201cconfused\u201d by the investigators\u2019 questions when he lied not once, not twice, but three times. Pelley also said \u201c<em>If<\/em> the inspector general is right about McCabe lying,\u201d as if to subtly question the findings of the report and cast a shadow of doubt. McCabe was also able to claim he was fired because he \u201copened a case against the President of the United States\u201d and not that he lied under oath.<\/p>\n<p>In his 2023 interview with then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, Pelley asked Garland about the timing of the indictments against Donald Trump. As Garland repeatedly insisted the DOJ was not political, Pelley jumped in to, as The Federalist\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2023\/10\/03\/merrick-garlands-60-minutes-interview-was-pure-political-propaganda\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kylee Griswold wrote<\/a>, \u201cto clarify the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fncs-dean-msm-coverage-of-cuomo-was-puff-pieces-while-there-were-bodybags-piling-up\/\" title=\"FNC&#039;s Dean: MSM Coverage of Cuomo Was &#039;Puff Pieces&#039; While &#039;There Were Bodybags Piling up&#039;\">attorney general\u2019<\/a>s answer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe investigation itself has determined the timing,\u201d Pelley offered to Garland, essentially giving Garland the defense he <em>should<\/em> have made to sound less politically motivated. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, exactly right,\u201d Garland replied. <\/p>\n<p>Rather than pressing Garland on why the DOJ chose to <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >bring unprecedented political charges<\/a> against the leading opposition candidate in the middle of a presidential election, Pelley instead focused on trying to help Garland articulate the DOJ\u2019s decision. But a journalist\u2019s job is to look at anything critically and ask tough questions when needed. A lot of Americans already suspected the DOJ was being weaponized \u2014 a good moment for Pelley to grill Garland on some of the concerns Americans had. Instead, he sounded more like a communications advisor. <\/p>\n<p>Or take the time when Pelley interviewed Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich. The segment was supposedly meant to review the \u201cbook ban\u201d push by parents concerned about pornography and other inappropriate material in school libraries. But as <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/03\/07\/60-minutes-wages-propaganda-war-on-moms-for-liberty-with-book-ban-lies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Auguste Meyrat<\/a> wrote in these pages, \u201cPelley and his team shamelessly edited the whole segment to push a leftist narrative about book bans and parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CBS News cut a portion of the interview where Justice read portions of books that were available in elementary school libraries. Those passages were crucial to the nationwide debate since they allowed readers to judge for themselves whether the books were appropriate. But by removing that necessary context, CBS News (and Pelley) made it seem like Justice and Moms for Liberty were just irrational and objecting to books for no reason.<\/p>\n<p>Just last year, Pelley <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/05\/05\/cbss-60-minutes-invites-russia-hoax-architect-marc-elias-to-attack-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">interviewed<\/a> left-wing political hack Marc Elias, claiming it was \u201cnearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story, because of the fear now running through our system of justice.\u201d Notably, a cursory search does not turn up any times in which Pelley spoke of the \u201cfear now running through our system of justice\u201d when then-president Joe Biden\u2019s DOJ was targeting its political adversaries.<\/p>\n<p>Pelley did not disclose to viewers that Elias represented Kamala Harris\u2019 campaign and the Democratic National Committee, nor did he mention that when Elias worked for Hillary Clinton and was responsible for hiring the law firm, Fusion GPS, for opposition research against Trump. Fusion GPS would later hire Christopher Steele to write the phony \u201cSteele dossier,\u201d which was then used the launch the Russia Collusion hoax.<\/p>\n<p>Those things are not minor details. Instead they are the type of facts that viewers would need in order to weigh the credibility of the person speaking (in this case, Elias). But Pelley left them out. <\/p>\n<p>Then of course there was the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/05\/28\/like-scott-pelleys-commencement-rant-60-minutes-is-unserious-democrat-propaganda\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">commencement address<\/a> that Pelley gave at the Wake Forest University graduation in 2025. Pelley called the time a \u201cmoment of crisis\u201d and compared it to the Second World War.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur country is in peril,\u201d he told graduates. But that\u2019s how political activists speak, not journalists. <\/p>\n<p>So what then do you call a political activist who plays the role of a journalist?<\/p>\n<p>Well,  a paid propagandist. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CBS fired Scott Pelley, whose reaction confirmed he was a high-paid propagandist posing as a journalist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2610149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-03-at-11.43.15-AM-scaled-e1780501496218-1024x577.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5157,4188,80772,44008,4488],"class_list":["post-2610148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-journalism","tag-media","tag-paid-influence","tag-political-messaging","tag-propaganda"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-03-at-11.43.15-AM-scaled-e1780501496218-1024x577.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2610148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2610152,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610148\/revisions\/2610152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2610149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2610148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2610148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2610148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}