Buck Brief - Scott Pelley is a Jerk Who Deserved to Get Canned

Buck Sexton reacts to the departure of CBS journalist Scott Pelley, arguing that it reflects a broader decline in public trust in legacy media. Buck discusses leadership changes at CBS, the future of 60 Minutes, media bias, and the growing influence of independent news sources and digital platforms. He also examines how shifting audience habits are challenging the traditional network news model and reshaping the media landscape.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Perhaps a final nail in the coffin for the era
of the overpaid, pompous, douchebag TV news anchor. That is
what I take away from Scott Pelley getting ejected. Fired,
You fired, Scott.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
The furrowed brow embodiment of network news sanctimony has been
tossed from sixty Minutes and CBS. He earned every bit
of it, By the way, That was the story from
this week. This wasn't some corporate hatchet job on a
noble truth teller, though that's obviously the martyrdom narrative he
wants to go with. This was a guy who spent

(00:39):
years perched on a high horse that he never deserved
in the first place, lecturing America with that mix of
moral superiority and selective outrage, and he finally just got
what he deserved in spectacular fashion. No severance, golden parachute,
just the door hitting him on the way out, and
his boss's head. Zero choice. He made sure that this

(01:02):
was the only way this was going to go. So
let's go back to the beginning of the week. So
you got new leadership at CBS. For those of you
are like Buck, why do you care about this? Because
the whole edifice of the lib media, the corporate lib media,
New York Times, CNN, now CBS, this all has come
crumbling down. And it's because they're all frauds, and their
whole premise that they are unbiased and that they're just

(01:24):
doing news is a line. So I think that it's important,
it's important for the country that the truth be out
there for all on these issues.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
So CBS they've got new leadership.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
There's the paramount Skydance shakeup. Barry Weiss's editor in chief,
Nick Bilton, is the new executive producer for sixty minutes,
Fresh Eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
New Direction. Right, that's the idea.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
And in Bilton's first staff meeting, Pelly didn't show up
to offer any constructive input. He didn't have a private
chat to have a discussion. Men to men, if you will. No,
he hijacked the room like the diva he is, and
he threw a tantrum. He attacked Builton's qualifications as slender.
He questioned his very presence of the network. He accused

(02:10):
Barry Weiss the woman brought into fix CBS and sixty
minutes of straight up murdering sixty minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
That was what he said.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
And his voice was shaking with theatrical indignation, and he
declared that she doesn't love the place, that she's there
to kill it. Pelia's course, of course, his longtime correspondent,
former CBS news anchor, the guy he's been cashing those
fat network checks for decades, but he couldn't handle reality here.
The winds of change were blowing strongly. He disrespected his

(02:43):
new boss in front of the whole team. That's not
about taking a principal to stand by the way, that's
begging to get fired. And that's pompous nonsense. You don't
get to torch torch the boss in an open forum
and then expect to keep your corner office. Builton's termination letter,
by the way, was blunt. Pelly showed remarkable incivility and contempt,

(03:04):
hijacked the meeting instead of engaging privately, even after being
invited to dinner, but game Over fired for cause effective immediately.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's where this went. So Pelly totally deserved it. Let's
just be real about that.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
And this is the same Pelly who, among others like him,
built a career on the insufferable I'm a guardian of
truth persona the slow dramatic delivery the perse lips. This
guy's really an actor. The implication, of course, always was
that anyone who disagrees with this coastal elite consensus.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Is some threat to democracy. Oh, a threat to democracy.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Four years he's really been at the top of the
heap of overpaid news anchors who mistake ideological comfort food
for journalism, and Americans began to see through it. And
if they weren't in it, they weren't on after football
on Sunday nights. By the way, nobody even watched this crap.
I think so his firing is not a loss for journalism.
This is a long overdue reckoning, and I think it's

(04:00):
good for all journalism in general, because journalism is a fraud.
There's no such thing as objective journalism. That's always been
a lie. This isn't really about one guy. The whole
idea of the multimillion dollar news anchor or news anchor
who's the infallible oracle of journal truth is just collapsing everywhere.

(04:21):
The people at sixty Minutes, the networks, these big corporate
left wing Democrat outlets, they've been living like kings on
this delusion that they are unbiased arbiters.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
But that's nonsense. They're not nonpartisan, they're not objective. It's
a croc.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
And Americans with an IQ above room temperature have stopped
believing that, or never believed that. Perhaps polls are shown
for a long time that trust in legacy media is
in the toilet, and for good reason. People see the pattern,
story shape, biomission, framing, loaded language, and convenient timing. When
it aligns with one political tribe, it's brave journalism. Of course,
when it doesn't, it's dangerous misinformation. So Pelly and his

(04:59):
ilk they thrived in that bubble, of course, no accountability
beyond political desire, lavish salaries, glowing profiles, one one hand
washing the other, with all these guys and gals, awards
from their peers, all to reinforce the narrative, and it
was quite a partisan one. But the audience began to fragment.

(05:20):
Cable independent voices, social media, podcast real competition exposed this
for the hollow performative nonsense that it was. I mean,
the lie of non partisanship shattered. These people couldn't figure
out that the Hunter Biden laptop was real.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
It's one of the biggest scandals I've ever seen, and
you don't cover it. You want to talk about.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
It, well, because it can't be verified.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
You want to talk about insignificant things. I'm telling you,
of course it can be verified. Excuse me. They found
the laptop, leslie lest verifying.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
What can't be verified the laptop?

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Why you said that even the family hasn't the family
won the lepto. He's gone into hiding for five days,
he's gone into diet.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
He's prepared for your debate.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Oh, he's taking them five days to prepare.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
I doubt it.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Ident it okay.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
These people, by the way, also couldn't figure out that
Joe Biden had dementia. The great truth tellers at sixty
minutes thought Joe Biden was just fine, no problem. So
Pelly's meltdown here captures the entitlement sentiment. And the new

(06:33):
managements come in. They're trying to inject some accountability, different perspectives,
and this guy throws a public fit. He accuses of
them of wanting falsehoods and bias in stories. And this
is somebody who has been biased for many, many years,
for decades, really, and they're going to claim now it's
all about political pressure. It's not You're not allowed to

(06:54):
do what this guy did in any workplace anywhere in America.
Everyone knows that. So this is somebody who, as you know,
gave the most pompous speech maybe in history at Wake
Forest about the threat to our democracy.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
To move forward. We debate, not demonized, We discuss, not destroy.
But in this moment, this moment, this morning, our sacred
rule of law is underattack. Journalism is underattack, universities are underattack,

(07:32):
freedom of speech is underattack, and insidious fear is reaching
through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our
private thoughts.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
I mean, this is after these people all went along
with the COVID Fauci lies. This is after pretending Joe
Biden didn't have dementia, the Russia collusion lies against Trump,
all of this nonsense. It's absolutely appalling. So they have
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(08:55):
a licensed insurance agency. Now I'm a bigger picture here
of where media is going. News media, specifically this whole
thing about the pompous pellis.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Of the world.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
That era is coming to an end because they've had
to Audiences are getting smarter and they have options. They
can see raw footage, they can read primary source. It's
thanks to x they can see the original clips. A
lot of these things, like the Henry Novak case, for example,
which is now finally getting attention. The pompous actor in
the very expensive suit, pretending neutrality while pushing a worldview,

(09:28):
a political, a partisan point of view. It's just ridiculous.
I mean, these guys are also obviously overpaid. Scott Pelly
is going to end up launching a probably the Pelly Podcast.
I'm sure he's going to be talking to people about
the important things that he thinks about from his house
in Nantucket or whatever, and he's going to have dozens
of listeners. This guy's going to go from making millions

(09:48):
of dollars to making hundreds of dollars a month in
no time. And the public has just begun to see
through this more and more. There's still some people that
watch CBS News and they think, oh, I'm getting the truth,
and Scott Pelly's great journalists. This guy referred to himself
as being in combat just in the last twenty four hours.
He's I've been in combat. He wrote this in combat
in Afghanistan, in combat and rock He's observed other people

(10:12):
in combat zones who were in combat. He's never been
in combat. He's never even carried weapons to have to
prepare to be in combat. But he doesn't know the
difference and he doesn't care because it's all just one
big preening act. It's all just self aggrandizing trash. So
Scott Pelley didn't get fired for speaking truth to power.

(10:33):
He got fired for being unable to adapt to a
world where the power of the left wing news anchor
on the network news has been challenged and the narrative
has been decentralized away from it, and of course his
boss has had no choice, So good riddance on all this.
The sun is setting on the dinosaur anchors and their

(10:54):
monopoly on their supposed truth. So I think this is
going to be great. Pelly can Take is crying somewhere else.
The rest of us will watch this legacy media model
continue to implode, and it'll be great.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Shield Tie