Scott Pelley may not be Mr. Excitement, but he is not an idiot. He knew very well what he was getting into. He had to. I haven't heard, but I have to ass-u-me that he took advice from his agent and/or his attorney before speaking out. I mean, what he did was something that every employed person is guaranteed to get fired for: Insubordination.
Not every. And especially not in news.
I had three instances in my career where I put it all on the line, and none of them cost me my job.
The first was at KTVN, the CBS television affiliate in Reno. It was 1984, and it was the first of my three days off (I produced and anchored weekends, which were 12-hour days) when I got a phone call saying that the General Manager (there since 1967), News Director (there since 1969) and our consultant, former KRON, San Francisco ND Mitch Farris, had been fired and the new guy was calling an all-staff meeting for 4:00 p.m. that day.
I showered, got dressed and went to the station. In the former GM's parking spot, a new Saab 900 Turbo in black, with paper plates. The new guy, who a few days before had been Sales Manager at the company's station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, walks in and tells us all how lucky he is to be there. Way too slick, way too pompous.
So when he asked for questions, my hand was the first one up.
New GM: "Yes. You."
Me: "Where are you right now?"
New GM: "You mean with my 90-day plan, or my six-month plan, or my one-year plan?"
Me: "No. Physically. What's the address of the building you're standing in?"
New guy takes about a seven count, blinks and says:
"Well, that's not really fair...I just flew into town last night."
Me: "And you've already had time to find the Saab dealer and fire three guys who had this station number one at 5 and 5:30, tied for number one at 6:00 and 6:30 and a solid second at 11, which is about as good as a CBS affiliate can hope for. By the way, it's 4925 Energy Way."
New guy does another seven count and blinks:
"I'm gonna have trouble with you aren't I?"
Me: "Not for long, I wouldn't think, no."
Well, somehow I left the building still employed, got home to find a phone call from Mitch Farris who'd already heard about the meeting and who'd set up lunch for me the following day with the ABC affiliate in Las Vegas.
I came back to KTVN the day after to give notice and the new guy tried to keep me despite what I did in that meeting. Said I had "moxie". I left despite or maybe because of that.
It took them 14 years to get back to the ratings they had before they did that.
The second one was about ten years later, when the guys who ran the newsroom at KTVK in Phoenix sprung the news on us at a staff meeting that they had hired a legendarily unsafe helicopter pilot. Our anchor, Cameron Harper, and I immediately went after them for the wisdom of the hire and told them we wouldn't be flying with this guy.
The guys: "Where you planning on working, then?"
Me: "That'll be one
REALLY interesting lawsuit."
They caved, the pilot did his own reports and none of us apart from one volunteer photographer (who was taking lessons and ultimately replaced him as the pilot) flew with him for the short while it took for him to do something illegal and be gone.
We all kept our gigs.
And the third time was just a couple of years ago at Capital Public Radio, when we knew something was very wrong financially (our company health insurance was suspended for non-payment---which I found out AT my doctor's office) but did not know that it was (as has been alleged in a criminal proceeding) fraud and embezzlement.
During that staff meeting, I went up one side of Jun Reina and down the other. I treated him and the management of the station the way I would have if they were any other business that had done that to their employees.
And I kept my job.
The Boss gets to define what that is, even if it's just disagreement with management. But he had a contract. I have to believe that he will get some kind of 6-figure severance settlement from CBS, or will sue. Regardless, he'll land on his feet.
Word is that CBS is calling his termination "for cause", which would void his contract and the severance clause within. He'll absolutely sue. And yeah, he'll be somewhere else doing good work soon.
