I watched the CBS Evening News last night to see if there would be any mention of the firing of Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes and, to my surprise, there was a long segment about it. It included excerpts from Pelley’s defiant statement about his dismissal, which has been well-circulated on social media, and a tribute to his long career as a correspondent for the network, with clips of him interviewing presidents and reporting from war zones. It ended with a personal reminiscence from anchor Tony Dokoupil, who closed with a heartfelt message of thanks.
This impressed me because in 2008 I was in a situation somewhat similar to Pelley’s (in a decidedly smaller media domain). I was laid off, not fired, for primarily financial reasons, but philosophical differences with management also played a role. (I wanted a Travel section that entertained and informed readers about the world; the editors had decided that even Travel needed to be “local and useful.”) I was in my mid 50s; Pelley is in his late 60s; and he is much better off financially. But the main difference was that, far from giving me a tribute, the newspaper acted as if I’d never existed, making no mention of my departure in my old section. For people who had been reading me for nearly two decades, I simply disappeared.
