Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker And Jon Wertheim Say They Will Remain At ’60 Minutes’

The three remaining fill-time correspondents on 60 Minutes — Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim — said on Friday that they will remain with the show.

“We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die,” they wrote in a joint memo on Friday.

Their decision follows a memo on Thursday from new 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton, promising independence from corporate ownership. In them memo, Bilton also called the correspondents the “core to the show’s success.”

Stahl is the longest veteran on the show, having joined 60 Minutes in 1991. Whitaker has been with the newsmagazine since 2014, and Wertheim since 2017.

Their decision to remain for next season is undoubtedly a relief for CBS News and its editor in chief, Bari Weiss, whose changes to the broadcast sparked a verbal revolt from one of its senior correspondents, Scott Pelley. After a verbal confrontation with Bilton at an all staff meeting on Monday, Pelley was fired.

In their memo, the three remaining correspondents expressed dismay over how the changes have been carried out, including the firing last week of Tanya Simon, the show’s executive producer, and Draggan Mihailovich, who was executive editor.

“As far as we can tell — because no explanation has ever been offered, they were expelled because they fought for our 60 Minutes values and stood up to protect our independence and integrity,” the correspondents wrote.

“Newsroom are not supposed to be run like dictatorships. Collaboration and argument are the way we have always worked at 60. Don Hewitt actually encouraged loud passionate advocacy for our pieces.”

The correspondents’ complete memo below: