Scott Cameron Pelley (born July 28, 1957) is an American author and reporter for CBS News for more than 31 years. Pelley is the author of the 2019 book, Truth Worth Telling, and a correspondent for the CBS News magazine 60 Minutes. Pelley served as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017, a period in which the broadcast added more than a million and a half viewers, achieving its highest ratings in more than a decade.[1] Pelley served as CBS News’s chief White House correspondent from 1997 to 1999.
Pelley interviews President Barack Obama in the Diplomatic Receiving Room of the White House, 2011
CBS News
Pelley's CBS career started in New York City in 1989. Later, he returned to Dallas to cover national affairs from the CBS bureau.[3] Pelley covered the 1990/91 Gulf war, reporting from Baghdad and traveling with the XVIII Airborne Corps in its assault on Iraq and Kuwait. He was assigned to cover the 1992 presidential campaigns of Ross Perot and Bill Clinton, and also reported on such major events as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Waco Siege, and the Oklahoma City bombing.
Pelley served as CBS News's Chief White House Correspondent from 1997 to 1999. During that time, President Clinton was impeached by the United States House of Representatives. In covering the investigation of the president, Pelley broke the news that Monica Lewinsky had become a cooperating witness in the investigation conducted by the Office of Independent Counsel.
Pelley with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office.
60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II
Pelley interviewing Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
Pelley reported on the economic collapse of 2008-09, on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and reporting on climate change from Antarctica and the Arctic. In 2008, Pelley conducted an interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. The interview was the first with a Fed Chairman in decades and broke a long-standing Federal Reserve tradition.
Pelley has reported from Iraq on the front lines in the battle against ISIS;[4] he landed the first major television interview with FBI Director James Comey in 2014;[5] and he conducted an interview of the nurses who treated the first Ebola patient in the United States.[6] Pelley also conducted the only interview with one of the Navy SEALs who helped to kill Osama bin Laden.[7]
In September 2015, Pelley met Pope Francis at the Vatican ahead of the pontiff's visit to the United States,[8] and later led CBS News' coverage of the visit.
In 2006 and 2007 he filed reports on the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. In his 2007 report, Pelley enlisted the help of a rebel group to organize an armed reconnaissance into Darfur. The story revealed a village that had been destroyed by government forces in their campaign of genocide.
In Afghanistan, Pelley accompanied numerous units of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in combat operations and reported independently on the effects of the war on civilians.
Miraculously, Pelley managed to get into Kyiv to interview President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the 60 Minutes segment which aired April 10, 2022 while Kyiv was under siege by Russian forces during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[10]
CBS Evening News
Pelley interviews Secretary of State John Kerry in 2015
Pelley became the anchor of the CBS Evening News on June 6, 2011, succeeding Katie Couric.[11][12][13] In Pelley's first nine months in the anchor chair, the program gained an additional daily 821,000 viewers.[14]
Pelley's coverage [clarification needed] of the Trump administration has been recognized by journalists and media evaluators. According to Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, Pelley's coverage of the Trump administration is an example of "pointed truth telling" that has "set himself apart" from his competitors.[15] Media critic Andrew Tyndall said, "To me, it's not commentary. It's actual reporting."[16]
Pelley later told CNN that he had been removed from the anchor chair for complaining to CBS News management about a hostile work environment for the news division's employees. The comments underscore the fallout the network continues to face from the Me Too movement, as CBS Corporation chairman Les Moonves, 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager and CBS This Morning host Charlie Rose have all been dismissed for inappropriate conduct on the job.[17][18]
Despite some articles blaming poor ratings when Pelley was relieved of his position, there are several other articles indicating strong ratings and audience growth during Pelley's tenure as CBS Evening News anchor. These tend to give credence to Pelley's assertion that he was let go due to his complaints about a "hostile work environment".[19]
Variety wrote, "For CBS the key was switching to Pelley, the former war reporter and White House correspondent. He took over from Katie Couric and has steadily made up ground ever since." Of 60 Minutes, David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun wrote in 2007, "If there is a single face of the broadcast, it is now that of Pelley who has done several of the biggest interviews and stories." Allen Neuharth, founder of USA Today, noted that "Pelley threw hardballs" in his 2007 interview with President Bush. Bob Woodward, writing in The Washington Post in 2007, said, "Scott Pelley nailed the crucial question" in his interview with former CIA Director, George Tenet. William F. Buckley, Jr., in the National Review, said "Pelley did fine work" in the Tenet piece. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times wrote, "the strongest on-air personality of the moment belongs to one of the program's blander faces, Scott Pelley."[20] On Pelley's second anniversary as anchor of the CBS Evening News, the Baltimore Sun praised Pelley and his team for delivering an "honest" newscast.[21]
Variety lauded Pelley as anchor of the CBS Evening News, writing that Pelley "conveys the sense of someone with genuine gravitas and a commitment to his craft, while appearing cool and unflappable in breaking-news situations."[22] In February 2015, the Los Angeles Times praised Pelley's "no frills style" and lauded him for being "all about the journalism."[23] Veteran television writer Stephen Battaglio wrote, "While authenticity has become a hot topic in TV news, Pelley has never needed to invent it or try to enhance it."[23]
In 2020, Pelley and his team were awarded the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for reporting on the separation of migrant children from their families at the U.S. border. This was Pelley's fourth duPont-Columbia Award.[citation needed]
In 2016, Pelley and his team were awarded the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for reporting on a nerve gas attack that occurred in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria, in 2013. More than 1,400 civilians were killed. The judges cited "previously unheard testimony and unseen images which bore shocking witness to the 2013 Syrian Sarin gas attacks."[citation needed]
In 2014, CBS News was recognized with the Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Award for its coverage of the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In their citation the judges wrote, "Scott Pelley's conversation on '60 Minutes' with seven of the families that lost children was remarkable for its courage and candor."[citation needed]
Pelley at the 72nd Annual Peabody Awards
In 2013, Pelley's team of producers, photographers and editors won its third George Foster Peabody Award for an investigation of a fraudulent medical study at Duke University. The report detailed how a star researcher fabricated data in what was thought to be an important breakthrough in cancer treatment.[citation needed]
Pelley (left) speaks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for 60 Minutes in 2022
Pelley and his team earned the 2012 Gerald Loeb Award for Explanatory business journalism for the story "The Next Housing Shock."[24]
In 2011, Pelley's team won the Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Award for an investigation into the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The story uncovered the troubled history of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the months and days before the 2010 blowout that killed 11 crewmen and unleashed the largest accidental oil spill in history.[citation needed]
In 2009, Pelley's team won its second George Foster Peabody Award for a report on the medical relief organization Remote Area Medical (RAM). RAM was created to airdrop doctors and supplies into the developing world, but today it does most of its work setting up free medical clinics for the uninsured in the United States.[25]
Also in 2009, Pelley's team won the George Polk Award, the Gerald Loeb Award for Television Enterprise business journalism,[26] and an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for an investigation of American recycling companies that secretly ship hazardous waste to China. The report exposed an illegal trade that ruins the health of villagers who dismantle discarded computers under medieval conditions.
The Pelley team's reporting on the deaths of civilians during a Marine engagement in Haditha, Iraq, won the 2007 George Foster Peabody Award.[27] The citation for the award said in part, "This thorough, open-minded investigation of the worst single killing of civilians by American troops since Vietnam put not just the incident into better perspective but the entire Iraq War and the terrible choices it presents both soldier and civilian".[28]
The show's reporting on child slavery in India earned 60 Minutes II the Investigative Reporters and Editors award in 1999.[citation needed]
Pelley left Texas Tech without a degree, but he has maintained an ongoing relationship with the university. On March 22, 2013, he was named an Outstanding Alumnus of Texas Tech University, the highest honor bestowed by Texas Tech Alumni Association. Pelley was inducted into the Texas Tech University College of Media and Communication Hall of Fame in 2006. He currently serves on the professional advisory board of the university's College of Media and Communication.[citation needed]
In 2010, Pelley was named to Salon.com's "Men on Top" list alongside Conan O'Brien, Tom Hardy, and Mark Ronson.[29] "He restores a little of our faith in TV news," writes Salon.com, "while performing hugely important, world-bettering reports along the way."[29]
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation. In 2002, 60 Minutes was ranked number six on TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time", and in 2013, it was ranked number 24 on the magazine's list of the "60 Best Series of All Time". In 2023, Variety ranked 60 Minutes as the twentieth-greatest TV show of all time. The New York Times has called it "one of the most esteemed news magazines on American television".
The CBS Evening News is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The CBS Evening News is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature stories and interviews by CBS News correspondents and reporters covering events around the world. The program has been broadcast since July 1, 1941, under the original title CBS Television News, eventually adopting its current title in 1963.
The Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award honors excellence in broadcast and digital journalism in the public service and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The awards were established in 1942 and administered until 1967 by Washington and Lee University's O. W. Riegel, Curator and Head of the Department of Journalism and Communications. Since 1968 they have been administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, and are considered by some to be the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, another program administered by Columbia University.
Edward Rudolph Bradley Jr. was an American broadcast journalist and news anchor who is best known for reporting with 60 Minutes and CBS News.
Bob Lloyd Schieffer is an American television journalist. He is known for his moderation of presidential debates, where he has been praised for his capability. Schieffer is one of the few journalists to have covered all four of the major Washington national assignments: the White House, the Pentagon, United States Department of State, and United States Congress. His career with CBS has almost exclusively dealt with national politics. He has interviewed every United States President since Richard Nixon, as well as most of those who sought the office.
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Lesley Rene Stahl is an American television journalist. She has spent most of her career with CBS News, where she began as a producer in 1971. Since 1991, she has reported for CBS's 60 Minutes. She is known for her news and television investigations and award-winning foreign reporting. For her body of work she has earned various journalism awards including a Lifetime Achievement News and Documentary Emmy Award in 2003 for overall excellence in reporting.
Stephen F. Kroft is an American retired journalist who was a long-time correspondent for 60 Minutes. His investigative reporting garnered widespread acclaim, winning him three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 2003.
Robert David Simon was an American television correspondent for CBS News. He covered crises, war, and unrest in 67 countries during his career. Simon reported the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, the Israeli-Lebanese Conflict in 1982, and the student protests in China's Tiananmen Square in 1989. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he and four of his TV crew were captured and imprisoned by Iraq for 40 days. He published a book about the experience titled Forty Days.
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References
1 2 Kohn, David (February 26, 2002). "Scott Pelley Bio". CBS News. Archived from the original on December 24, 2007. Retrieved May 5, 2009.
↑ Carter, Logan G. (Summer 2006). "Hall of Fame"(PDF). The Mass Communicator. 31 (2). College of Media & Communication, Texas Tech University: 17. Archived from the original(PDF) on April 12, 2012. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
↑ "Scott Pelley". www.cbsnews.com. September 2022. Retrieved March 7, 2023.
↑ Hodenfield, Chris (January 31, 2010). "At Home With Scott Pelley". New Canaan-Darien+Rowayton. Moffly Publications. Archived from the original on January 29, 2017. Retrieved April 14, 2017.
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