Elite journalists aren't speaking truth to power — they're just pretending

You have probably heard the news about journalist Scott Pelley. This week, CBS News, under the leadership of Bari Weiss, fired the longtime anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent. What you may not know about is his parting shot. Here's the section that stood out to me.

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. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism ... have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

From a man of Pelley's standing, this is pretty much like a summary execution. In another time and place, it would be the end of Weiss's career, as her reputation would be irreparable. (Ditto for Nick Bilton, whom she hired to run 60 Minutes.) Forget about politics. Their team can't get the details right. Pelley is calling out a mortal sin with the authority of the pope.

And then, as if to confirm the allegations against him, Nick Bilton actually wrote to Pelley explaining his reasons for firing him. Of course, they are not good reasons, as you can see.

You hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort. Yesterday's performative display of hostility enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress. I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama. I am eager to work alongside those who share this goal. Despite yesterday's misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested ...

You can read about the details of that meeting in the Times – Scott Pelley accused the "new management" of "murdering" 60 Minutes – and judge for yourself. From where I'm standing, however, Nick Bilton got mad that Pelley made him look like a putz, because, well, the truth is often painful. Nick Bilton is a p---. According to the Post, the newsroom literally laughed at Bilton and applauded after he left. There isn't enough room at CBS News for him and an award-winning journalist who commands the respect of millions. P--- stays. Pelley goes.

Bilton's letter to Scott Pelley got its own Times page yesterday (meaning, there's nothing on the page but a copy of the letter with a hed.) From that kind of exposure perhaps there will be broader public recognition that merit no longer matters in elite news media in the era of Donald Trump. Weiss isn't a hard news reporter, nor is Bilton. Neither has experience managing newsrooms of any size, much less those as big and consequential as CBS's. They went to the right schools. They schmoozed the right people. Those are their qualifications. Scott Pelley is their antipode. He is a model of high standards of excellence and professionalism. Naturally, he had to be eliminated. His mere presence was humiliating.

You might think this whole thing is so embarrassing that Weiss and Bilton can't recover. I regret to inform you they will be fine. Everyone working in elite news media knows the score: connections trump integrity. They know this, because they are, like Weiss and Bilton, products of elite schools where everyone is taught to think of themselves as members of a ruling class. There is a fast-track from Yale to the Times, for instance. You don't have to work your way up the ladder. There is no ladder. Weiss may be driving CBS News into the ground, but she is still touched by the hand of Larry Ellison. She may be a failure, but she's still a "winner." Elite journalists will still answer her calls. That Scott Pelley said she instructed him to "inject falsehoods and bias" into his reporting will make no difference at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The moral? Hard work and playing by the rules are a sucker's game.

The consequence of all this corruption is a softness of character that gets little attention. Elite newspeople cannot be challenged without falling to pieces. (The Post said Scott Pelley was fired because he "interrogated" his unqualified boss and "questioned his credentials and demanded answers about fired colleagues." In response, Nick Bilton said Pelley "hijacked my first meeting" with "a performative display of hostility.") And if they are, they get vindictive quick. (Bari Weiss leaked to the Post a recording of a newsroom meeting in which she accused Pelley of breaking the bonds of "trust and mutual respect," bonds that she herself undermined by leaking the recording to the Post.) Meanwhile, the truth is plain to see: they are soft because they did not earn their place, and they are vindictive because they are soft.

Merit doesn't matter, so neither does character. I think that explains the decrepit state of our media better than any other theory. When the Times' David Sanger asked a challenging question about the Iran war, Donald Trump accused him of treason. "You're a fake guy," the president said. "We had a total military victory. I actually think it's sort of treasonous what you write. You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it's treason." When CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked a hard question, Trump said: "Be quiet. You should be ashamed of yourself. You used to be conservative from Alabama. CNN does such false reporting, but now they have new ownership, so maybe it'll straighten it out. It’s hard to straighten garbage out."

Did Sanger stand up for himself? Did Collins? No. To be sure, they responded, but feebly, as if they had a snowball's chance of correcting Trump's assertions of fact. But that's not the same thing as standing up for oneself, is it? That would require a strength of character acted on in spite of the consequences, like what Scott Pelley did when he told off his nepo-baby boss. Sorry, but a man like the Times' Sanger, who doesn't respond to being called a traitor, is a coward who deserves what he gets, whether that's more insults from Trump or greater loss of credibility with the news-consuming public. I mean, forget about politics. (Liberals focus on that too much.) Why would anyone trust a weakling who refuses to defend himself?

As long as elite journalists stick together, however, they will never face the consequences of being soft. They can pretend collectively to be speaking truth to power when the actual truth is obvious and sad. And they will stick together, because merit doesn't matter. (David Sanger went from Harvard straight to the Times. Kaitlan Collins went from the University of Alabama to CNN after a brief stint at The Daily Caller.) Everyone knows connections trump integrity. With Scott Pelley gone to pasture, everyone also knows integrity has no future.