Scott Cameron Pelley was born on July 28, 1957, and is an American author and broadcast journalist. He is the author of the 2019 book, Truth Worth Telling, and a former correspondent for the CBS News magazine 60 Minutes.
๐ Early Life and Education
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Pelley grew up in Lubbock, where he graduated from Coronado High School. He obtained his first job in journalism at the age of 15 as a copyboy for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. He majored in journalism at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
๐บ Local News Career
From 1975 to 1978 he worked for KSEL-TV in Lubbock. From 1978 to 1981 he worked for KXAS-TV in Dallas. From 1982 to 1989 he was a producer/reporter for WFAA-TV in Dallas.
๐๏ธ CBS News and White House Coverage
Pelley’s CBS career started in New York City in 1989. He served as CBS News’s Chief White House Correspondent from 1997 to 1999. During that time, President Clinton was impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Pelley broke the news that Monica Lewinsky had become a cooperating witness in the investigation conducted by the Office of Independent Counsel.
๐ War Zones and Major Events
Pelley covered the 1990/91 Gulf war, reporting from Baghdad and traveling with the XVIII Airborne Corps. He reported on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and on climate change from Antarctica and the Arctic. Pelley entered Kyiv to interview President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the 60 Minutes segment which aired April 10, 2022.
๐ก CBS Evening News Anchor
Pelley became the anchor of the CBS Evening News on June 6, 2011, succeeding Katie Couric. In Pelley’s first nine months in the anchor chair, the program gained an additional daily 821,000 viewers. Pelley served as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 2011 to 2017, a period in which the broadcast added more than a million and a half viewers.
๐ Awards and Recognition
Pelley is the most awarded correspondent in the history of 60 Minutes. He has won 51 national Emmy Awards, four Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Silver Batons, and three George Foster Peabody Awards. In 2016, Pelley was honored with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.
๐ Notable Interviews
In 2009, Pelley conducted an interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the first with a Fed Chairman in decades. He landed the first major television interview with FBI Director James Comey in 2014. On October 15, 2023, Pelley conducted an interview with US President Joe Biden about the October 7 attacks and the ongoing Gaza war.
โ๏ธ Controversy and Departure
On June 2, 2026, following his criticism of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and new 60 Minutes executive producer Nick Bilton at a staff meeting, Pelley was fired by CBS News. Pelley accused the new CBS leadership of instructing him to insert falsehoods into a political story, and to include assertions that were not verified. “The collapse of values at the top has become untenable,” Pelley wrote.
| Year | Event | Role | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-2017 | CBS Evening News | Anchor & Managing Editor | Added 1.5 million viewers |
| 1997-1999 | White House Correspondent | Chief Correspondent | Broke Lewinsky story |
| 2026 | Fired from CBS | 60 Minutes Correspondent | Terminated for cause |
| 2016 | Walter Cronkite Award | Recipient | Honored for journalism |