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ARTICLE VIEW:
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4 min read
‘If you fall silent, the country is doomed’: CBS News’ Scott
Pelley stresses courage as network faces pressure campaign
By Brian Stelter, CNN
Updated:
9:23 PM EDT, Sat June 7, 2025
Source: CNN
A climate of fear is perceptible in the United States today, and it
must be resisted no matter what, CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley
says.
“People are silencing themselves for fear that the government will
retaliate against them, and that’s not the America that we all
love,” Pelley told Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview after
CNN’s Saturday telecast of “.”
The Broadway play, which recounts CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow’s
unflinching 1954 broadcasts about Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Cold War
witch hunts, has stirred comparisons between McCarthyism and Trumpism,
and between the CBS network then and now.
Fear and courage “are the two themes that run through both of these
moments in American history,” Pelley told CNN’s Cooper.
“The most important thing is to have the courage to speak, to not let
fear permeate the country so that everyone suddenly becomes silent,”
the former “CBS Evening News” anchor added. “If you have the
courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is
doomed.”
Cooper asked Pelley, a nearly 40-year veteran of CBS: “Do you still
believe in journalism? Do you still believe in the role of
journalists?”
“It is the only thing that’s gonna save the country,” Pelley
responded. “You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t
be done.”
Cooper, who also works alongside Pelley as a correspondent on “60
Minutes,” anchored a discussion about the state of journalism after
the Broadway telecast Saturday night.
One inescapable topic was President ’s pressure campaign against CBS
News.
Trump filed a legally dubious over a “60 Minutes” interview with
Kamala Harris last fall.
CBS News journalists and executives have sought to fight the suit and
its allegations of “election interference.” But lawyers at CBS
parent Paramount Global have been trying to strike a settlement with
Trump, perhaps believing that such a deal will help secure the Trump
administration’s approval of to merge with Skydance Media.
The settlement could look like a payoff in exchange for government
approval and would spark an outcry from CBS News journalists. At “60
Minutes,” “everyone thinks this lawsuit is an act of extortion,
everyone,” a network correspondent .
When Cooper asked Pelley what Murrow would think of the state of play
at CBS, Pelley said that “he would probably be waiting to see how
this lawsuit from the president works out and how the Paramount
Corporation deals.”
Murrow, he said, “would be for fighting,” not settling.
A settlement would be “very damaging to CBS, to Paramount, to the
reputation of those companies,” Pelley added. “I think many of the
law firms that made deals with the White House are at this very moment
regretting it. That doesn’t look like their finest hour.”
When asked about of “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens,
Pelley repeated what he told viewers — that Owens felt that he no
longer had “the independence that honest journalism requires.”
At the time, the correspondents talked about leaving with him, but
Lesley Stahl recently told that Owens “explicitly asked us not to
resign.”
Pelley told Cooper that, on the one hand, “you really wish the
company was behind you 100%, right?” On the other hand, “my work
is getting on the air.” Paramount bosses have not killed any “60
Minutes” segments, even though the newsmagazine has aggressively
covered the Trump administration.
“While I would like to have that public backing,” Pelley said,
“maybe the more important thing is the work is still getting on the
air.”
Pelley caused a stir with a at Wake Forest University last month. Many
conservative media outlets said Pelley ripped Trump, though he never
mentioned the president by name.
“Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance
works for power,” Pelley said in the speech. “First, make the truth
seekers live in fear. Sue the journalists. For nothing.”
Pelley also talked in the speech about the Trump administration’s
actions and warned that people in power “can rewrite history.”
“With grotesque, false narratives, they can make heroes criminals and
criminals heroes,” Pelley said. “And they can change the definition
of the words we use to describe reality. ‘Diversity’ is now
described as ‘illegal.’ ‘Equity’ is to be shunned.
‘Inclusion’ is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my
friends.”
In the sit-down with Cooper, Pelley said he thought he was echoing the
sentiments of Murrow in the 1950s, “that freedom of speech is what
matters in this country.”
“You can agree with the government. You can disagree with the
government. But you have the right to speak no matter what your opinion
is. If the government begins to punish our citizens because of what
they have to say, then our country’s gone terribly wrong.”
As for the furor over his commencement speech, Pelley remarked, “what
does it say about our country when there’s hysteria about a speech
that’s about freedom of speech?”
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