’60 Minutes’ Firings: What We Know About Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega & Scott Pelley

As if the cancelation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert wasn’t enough, CBS is going through yet another shakeup behind the scenes. This time, it’s with 60 Minutes, the long-running news magazine program that viewers have been watching for nearly six decades. With firings and departures underway, multiple journalists and correspondents have spoken out about the changes taking place ever since new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss took over.

Anderson Cooper appeared in his final broadcast with the program on May 17, 2026. Choosing to leave his position to focus on his job at CNN and raising his children, the veteran reporter bid farewell to his CBS role.

“Things can always evolve and change, and I think that’s awesome, and things should evolve and change, but I hope the core of what 60 Minutes is always remains,” he said before leaving.

Just days later, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega had their 60 Minutes contracts gutted.

Here are the staff members who were fired from 60 Minutes in 2026.

Cecilia Vega

Cecilia Vega, the first Latina correspondent to be on 60 Minutes, announced on May 29 that she was fired by CBS. Her contract was supposed to run until March 2027.

“I was fired today,” Vega wrote in a statement, before accusing CBS of trying to control her team’s reporting. “In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions.”

Vega continued, “I held the line and refused to incorporate suggestions that offend the conscience, a phrase I borrow from a colleague who has also fought to keep questionable editorial suggestions away from the facts. I know from many conversations with colleagues that many producing teams and correspondents working on the show today have had to fight to maintain editorial independence with regularity. I am far from the only 60 Minutes correspondent who has asked herself, ‘What is my personal red line? How much can I push back before I pay the price?'”

Sharyn Alfonsi

Days before Vega’s firing, Alfonsi announced that her contract had not been renewed.

“Over the weekend, my contract with CBS News expired, drawing to a close 20 twenty years with the network, including more than a decade at 60 Minutes,” Alfonsi told the Los Angeles Times. “Following an intense editorial dispute over our CECOT story, repeated attempts by my representation to establish a path forward were met with absolute silence from network executives. The message could not be clearer: my time at 60 Minutes is apparently over.”

Scott Pelley

Scott Pelley was axed from 60 Minutes shortly after his other colleagues departed. After accusing editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of “murdering” the news program, new executive producer Nick Bilton informed staffers that Pelley was fired on June 2.

“Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause,” Pelley wrote in a statement after he was fired. “Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos. For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them.”