Veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl says the recent upheaval at CBS News is “by far the worst experience” she has witnessed in a journalism career spanning over five decades.
Stahl told Puck News that she remains furious over the recent purge that claimed executive producer Tanya Simon, senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich, correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, veteran producer Guy Campanile and digital chief Matthew Polevoy, in addition to the subsequent firing of longtime correspondent Scott Pelley.
“It’s just been obviously the hardest chapter of my career,” Stahl said.
“This was by far the worst experience I’ve been involved in, or even witnessed.”
The comments came days after she and the two remaining correspondents on last season’s roster — Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim — jointly announced that they would return for the show’s next season.
Stahl, 84, said she still does not understand why several of her longtime colleagues were fired.
“They fired everybody who was around Tanya,” she said. “We don’t know why.”
“He doesn’t know why. He has no idea why he was fired. None,” she added of Campanile. “And I have no idea why he was fired.”
Stahl seconded Pelley’s recent account of his June 2 meeting with management hours before he was axed, saying he demanded to know why key crew members had been fired days earlier.
“That’s what he was agitated about,” Stahl said. “Tell us why they were fired. That was his question. He never got an answer.
“They felt he was insubordinate for asking that question.”
Pelley’s abrupt dismissal followed a June 1 confrontation in which he blasted new executive producer Nick Bilton at a staff meeting — which Stahl herself missed while on assignment in Spain, The Post previously reported.
A CBS spokesperson told Puck News that the company was legally barred from revealing why employees are fired, citing confidentiality concerns.
Stahl recapped Simon’s dismissal, too, claiming the longtime executive producer went into a confab expecting to discuss the upcoming season of “60 Minutes.”
“Instead, she was fired in the three-minute meeting,” Stahl said.
The journo said Simon was told during her May 28 termination meeting that she and Mihailovich had to clear out their offices by 5 p.m. that day.
CBS disputed that characterization, telling Puck that while fired employees were initially informed that their company systems and badge access would be disabled at 5 p.m., a human resources representative later told them there was “no rush” and that they ultimately had until 8 p.m. to gather their belongings and depart.
Stahl said she wrestled with whether to stay but ultimately decided she could not abandon the program or the people who work there.
“We were going to do it together,” Stahl said of herself, Whitaker and Wertheim. “It was going to be the three of us, no matter what.
“That was difficult.”
Even after deciding to remain, Stahl said, she urged Bilton over a recent dinner not to overhaul the show.
“I was making a plea not to change anything on the Sunday night broadcast,” she said.
“The Sunday night broadcast, after 60 years, and after increasing our audience this past season, in my view, shouldn’t be tampered with.
“It’s so not broke, so why, quote, fix it?”
The Post has sought comment from CBS News.
