CBS has been working to purge itself of workplace harassment scandals, and according to former CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, it’s a welcome change. Pelley, who still works for CBS as a correspondent on 60 Minutes said in an appearance on CNN Sunday morning that he believes he was let go from his anchor position due to his repeated complaints about the work environment at CBS News. “I lost my job at the Evening News because I wouldn’t stop complaining to management about the hostile work environment,” he said. He then went on to explain that “four or five years ago I went to the president of the news division and explained to him that this hostile work environment couldn’t go on, for women and men, and he told me if I kept agitating about that internally, then I’d lose my job.”
After continuing to escalate his concerns without success, he said he finally went all the way up the ladder to then chairman Les Moonves. “I went to the chairman of the CBS corporation who listened to me very concerned for an hour, asked me some penetrating questions about what was going on. I didn’t hear back from him, but in the next opportunity in my contract I was let go from the Evening News.” Now, however, Pelley says CBS is headed in the right direction, telling CNN that “it’s all blue sky from here.”
