Scott Pelley did what a leader is supposed to do.
He took a hit for his people.
Pelley, a veteran reporter and news anchor, lost his job at CBS because he confronted his bosses during a staff meeting about firing several key staffers for “60 Minutes,” which for more than half a century has been the network’s flagship program. Pelley served as a correspondent for “60 Minutes.”
Not long after that meeting, CBS fired Pelley, too.
Recriminations followed.
CBS’s leadership accused Pelley, likely accurately, of insubordination. Pelley, who spent 37 years at CBS, responded — also probably accurately — by accusing the network’s leaders of lying and betraying classic journalistic standards.
Therein lies the nature of the dispute.
David Ellison, CEO of Paramount Skydance — which owns CBS — and Bari Weiss, CBS News editor-in-chief, have about as much regard for the traditional ethical standards and practices of journalism as a tornado does for the landscape it ravages.
Ellison’s goals, in particular, are different than those of earlier generations of journalistic entrepreneurs.
The moguls who built massive news operations in the 19th and 20th centuries did so because they wanted not just to make money, but to accumulate power and influence. They knew that delivering the news of a community, a state or the nation put them in the center of the public square.
Much as wistful journalists of today like to romanticize that era, there were problems during what this perceived golden age. Because journalism was largely a white and male profession, entire swaths of the population received either no coverage or coverage that was often grossly distorted.
Just as bad, the owners of news enterprises could engage in vendettas for the pettiest and most personal reasons.
Ellison, though, didn’t acquire CBS and its news division because he wanted to become this generation’s William Randolph Hearst. His motivations are as broad-based and mercantile as his financial portfolio.
The focus of his ambitions and his energies can be seen in the way he has approached President Donald Trump.
Historically, Ellison had been a backer of Democratic Party political candidates and socially liberal causes.
Once Trump returned to the White House, though, Ellison wasted little time in cultivating a stronger, tighter relationship with the new president. Because Trump is so easy to read — excessive flattery is the key to entering the world The Donald built — Ellison, without particular clairvoyance, could discern a path forward with the president, a path to even greater prosperity for Paramount Skydance and Ellison’s other interests with a now cooperative federal government helping him.
It wasn’t that Ellison’s views shifted.
Perhaps, in his heart of hearts, he still likes Democrats and liberal social causes, but those are, well, almost hobbies.
And business is business.
His one true priority.
This is what Pelley and other journalists struggle to accept.
Long years of experience have taught them how to deal with hostility. They know that playing the role of watchdog on the powerful and politically entrenched often will earn them enmity.
While they might not enjoy the experience of being attacked for telling the truth, they know that, by and large, it’s part of the job.
They can take it.
What they can’t take is being considered nothing more than an afterthought.
They can’t accept the notion that their work — work they consider important, even sacred — just doesn’t matter that much.
And that’s the message that Ellison and Weiss have sent regarding CBS News.
For Ellison specifically, the network’s news division contains nothing but downside, fresh chances with every broadcast to irritate or offend the insecure egomaniac in the White House and thus jeopardize Paramount’s larger business ambitions.
Still, one must admire Pelley’s quixotic stand.
I’ve often wondered why prominent national news figures who are paid millions upon millions to do their jobs can’t do the math when network layoffs roll around. Why they don’t say pay me a little less so that these other folks I respect and value can keep their jobs?
Why they don’t put themselves on the line for their colleagues?
Pelley did that.
He gave voice to the concerns of people he worked with but lacked the security to speak their minds.
Doing so cost him his job.
But the point of doing the right thing isn’t that a person is rewarded for acting honorably.
No, the point of doing the right thing is that it is … the right thing.