The Six+ Million Dollar Man Gets To Work

And the show (in this case, "60 Minutes") must go on. For now.

It is the dramatic opening sequence of the 1974 television series “The Six Million Dollar Man.” Following thirty seconds of imagery that depicts the fiery crash of astronaut Steve Austin, these words are spoken by government project leader Oscar Goldman (played by the late actor Richard Anderson):

“Steve Austin…Astronaut. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better….stronger…faster.”

It has been a week since Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of “60 Minutes,” held his first meeting with the show’s team. You’ve likely heard that it didn’t go well. We wonder if invoking “better, stronger, faster” might have changed the outcome.

Perhaps that was what he was hoping for when he walked to the front of the room, pulled out his phone, and began reading remarks to the team.

Maybe if CBS News Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss hadn’t been notable by not being there to introduce her new hire, Mr. Bilton. Maybe if Scott Pelley hadn’t canceled a previously planned vacation to be in that Monday morning meeting. Maybe if there had been other correspondents in the meeting (there weren’t).

Maybe it all wouldn’t have led to the moment that triggered Mr. Pelley to say exactly what was on his mind.

But it wasn’t the first indication that Mr. Bilton was thinking along the lines of “We can rebuild this fifty-eight-year-old institution. We can make it better…stronger…DIGITAL.” (Just as every news executive has said in the past decade.) Bilton telegraphed his intentions in the initial email he sent the entire “60 Minutes” staff the previous Thursday, coming just after what would be called “the Black Thursday massacre” had taken place.

In the course of a single day, the “60 Minutes” team would learn that not only Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent who had been the first to tangle with Bari Weiss publicly, would not have her contract renewed. But that wouldn’t have come as much of a shock to anyone.

The real shock came when word got out that fellow correspondent Cecilia Vega was being let go. A bigger tremor followed when the entire “60 Minutes” leadership was told they were being fired as well. That would include Executive Producer Tonya Simon, Executive Editor Draggan Mihailovich, and other veteran producers, including the person behind the show’s digital growth. (Why yes, “60 Minutes” has heard of digital. It’s actually been doing pretty good numbers there.)

This wasn’t just a small change for the very tight-knit group working on what is still television’s most-watched news program. It was a wholesale sacking of colleagues who were, by all accounts, very respected and admired.

For correspondent Scott Pelley, a former anchor of “The CBS Evening News” and a 37-year veteran of the network, it was all “impossible to believe.”

We’re hearing from Pelley for the first time in a sit-down interview with New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro in a recurring feature the paper calls, “The Interview.” The paper published the story, along with a video of the interview, yesterday (Sunday) morning. (If you haven’t read or watched it, you can do so via this free gift link. We would certainly encourage you to do so.)

The interview conducted by Ms. Garcia-Navarro is both detailed and wide-ranging. Throughout their discussion, she asks many of the questions that anyone interested in just what led one of the most prominent broadcast journalists of the day to confront the man selected to be his new boss — in a scene dramatic enough to end his career.

For his part, Pelley appears to be more than ready to talk about what he thinks about recent changes at CBS News since Bari Weiss’s arrival last fall and explains why he chose to speak up in the first meeting with the program’s new Executive Producer, Nick Bilton.

(We assume that you, dear reader, are familiar with the details of that meeting by now. If you need a refresher, we’ll point you to our previous coverage, linked here and here.)

What comes across most in his interview is that Scott Pelley cares deeply about the program he has worked on for the past 24 years and, perhaps even more so, about his colleagues there. He also believed his strong challenge to Nick Bilton during that meeting just one week ago was consistent with the program’s internal dialogue tradition, and that his remarks weren’t intended to be made public.

Perhaps Pelley had more than a little naivete in failing to realize that those remarks would lead to his termination from CBS less than 36 hours later. (Garcia-Navarro did not ask about earlier reports that Pelley had prepared a resignation letter.) He says that when he was invited the next day to a meeting with Bilton, Weiss, and other CBS management, being fired was “the furthest thing from his mind.”

Pelley then adds: “Some reporter I turned out to be.”

What we now know at the one-week anniversary of that fateful meeting is that ever since it ended, Nick Bilton has been busy doing damage control inside the “60 Minutes” offices on New York City’s West 57th Street. Dylan Byers, writing for Puck last Friday, called Bilton’s efforts “a charm offensive.” He’s held meetings with several staff members, including most importantly, the show’s three remaining on-air correspondents, Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim.

Bilton delivered another staff-wide email by week’s end that was notably different in tone from all his previous communications. Key to that email was Bilton’s declaration that he was committed to “maintaining the journalistic independence” that is a key part of the “60 Minutes” legacy as the program approaches its 59th season on the air.

Byers reports that Bilton’s efforts seem to have worked, leading to the joint statement from Stahl, Whitaker and Wertheim, stating that the trio would be staying on because, in their words, “We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die.” They went on to make their terms quite clear: “If we can continue doing the work that made this show what it is— committing acts of independent, fearless journalism and storytelling—we’re here for it. If not, we leave.”

On Sunday evening, another Puck columnist, this time William D. Cohan, published the first interview with Lesley Stahl about her thoughts on the past week's events and her decision to stay with the program, even though her pending contract extension has yet to be finalized.

In his NYT interview, Pelley’s accusation of editorial interference was detailed with a single example of what he says was Bari Weiss asking for changes to his February story about the ICE killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two protestors to the “Operation Metro Surge” operations in Minneapolis. It is Pelley’s contention that Weiss sent a note to then-EP Simon asking for the protestors to be made “to look more violent” in video shown in the story. Pelley refused to make the changes. CBS now says there was no political motivation and the four changes suggested by Weiss were part of the normal editorial collaboration.

Meanwhile, five days would seem to be a fairly quick education for Nick Bilton in the fine art of managing television talent. It’s a job we’ve done for more years than we want to count, and experience helps. We’ve had on-air talent scream at us, sob at us, and pretty much run the gamut of human emotions, including once being shoved into a wall by a former football player who was angrily insisting that we were being just too negative while trying to motivate a newsroom to put a better broadcast on the air.

We’ve said many times over the years that it takes a specific genetic makeup to have both the ego and confidence needed to regularly put one’s face in front of a camera and perform as a journalist. It is a required performance on top of the reporting skills used by every journalist in gathering and editing the story.

As if to remind us of this point, we’ve just watched the first episode of Rich Eisen’s new podcast series titled “This was SportsCenter” for ESPN and Disney+. In the premiere episode, Eisen goes one-on-one with former SportsCenter anchor and colleague Dan Patrick. Patrick recounts a lunch with then-ESPN President Steve Bornstein, who said to him, “You’re just ‘f-ing’ talent.” (The full word was used at the time.)

Patrick had heard Bornstein say this line before. But this time, Patrick says he responded with “Steve, do you think I could do your job?”

Bornstein thinks for a moment and says, “Yeah.”

Patrick then says, “Do you think you could do my job?”

Bornstein thinks for another moment and responds, “No.”

Patrick: “Then don’t call me ‘f-ing’ talent again.“

And he never did.

The takeaway is that being on television and being any good at it isn’t something that just anyone can do. No matter how easy it might look. Frankly, the real skill that the best have is making it look so damn easy most of the time.

According to Dylan Byers’ reporting on Puck, Nick Bilton received a three-year contract to become the new Executive Producer of “60 Minutes.” It will pay him $2.3 million a year to lead what will either continue as the most-watched non-sports show on television or become just another once-mighty relic of the dying medium of broadcasting.

He’s certainly had a hell of a first week on the job.

Whether Mr. Bilton can rebuild the franchise and make it better, stronger, and faster remains to be seen. He will have to do so now under much more scrutiny. That will also be true for the woman who hired him and made him “The Six (plus) Million Dollar Man.”

Lee Majors only had four seasons as Colonel Steve Austin before his series was canceled.

Because friends, the audience always has the final say.

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