Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim say they’ll ‘stay and fight’ at 60 Minutes

Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl and Jon Wertheim. Photograph: Getty Images View image in fullscreen Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl and Jon Wertheim. Photograph: Getty Images Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim say they’ll ‘stay and fight’ at 60 Minutes Stahl and Whitaker had been wild cards after new CBS News management fired multiple people in recent weeks Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim announced on Friday their decision to remain at CBS’s 60 Minutes after the tumultuous firings of several of the show’s senior correspondents and top producers. The three correspondents issued a joint statement, saying: “We have had a hard time deciding whether to stay … We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die. We have been grieving because this whole mess has wounded and damaged the broadcast.” “We want to stay and fight,” they added. Stahl, 84, and Whitaker, 74, had remained wild cards as they had not commented on the uproar that has plagued the show since the new management of CBS News ousted correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega and producers Tanya Simon, Draggan Mihailovich and Matthew Polevoy last Thursday as part of a total restructuring of the show. Then, on Tuesday evening, the network terminated veteran Scott Pelley, telling him in a legalistic email message that he was being fired for “cause” because of his conduct in an explosive meeting a day earlier with new executive producer Nick Bilton and the network’s managing editor, Charles Forelle. In Friday’s note, the trio of correspondents said they were still “deeply upset by the firings” of Simon and Mihailovich, who they described as “strong leaders who everyone respected”. “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. Newsrooms are not supposed to run like dictatorships,” they wrote. The correspondents went on to also mention Alfonsi, Vega and Pelley, as well as Polevoy and senior producer Guy Campanile, who was also fired by CBS News. “We want to express how sorry we are that these principled, fair and honest journalists were treated so shabbily, with such indecency. It’s been heartbreaking,” they wrote. Explaining their decision to stay, they said: “We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure. That is simply, categorically not the case. “We want to … try and repair and preserve our reputation by continuing the Mike Wallace tradition of hold their feet to the fire.” Stahl is, quite simply, one of the most well-known and well-respected (and feared) television journalists of the past 50 years. She joined CBS News in 1971 and has worked on 60 Minutes since 1991, with a list of famous segments and sit-downs too long to mention. Ahead of the 2020 election, Donald Trump – who was then up for re-election – cut short an interview with Stahl a