Longtime "60 Minutes" correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim have decided to stay with the program following a wave of high-profile firings, while warning in a joint statement to colleagues that "newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships."The trio of veteran journalists admitted they are still "deeply upset" by the recent shakeups at the program.The past two weeks have seen the firings of several top correspondents and producers from the venerated show."We have had a hard time deciding whether to stay," the group wrote, ultimately noting that they chose to remain with the embattled newsmagazine because they "don’t want to see ‘60 Minutes’ die."The long-running program has faced significant upheaval following the firings of producers Tanya Simon and Draggan Mihailovich, correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, among others.
This week, Scott Pelley was terminated a day after he exploded on network leadership at a meeting with new "60 Minutes" executive producer Nick Bilton. '60 MINUTES' MELTDOWN: SCOTT PELLEY FIRED, PRAISED, SCOLDED FOR ATTACKING BARI WEISS, CHARGES BIAS"60 Minutes" correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi, Jon Wertheim, Bill Whitaker, Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega and Anderson Cooper pose for a group portrait.Cooper has since left the show, and Vega, Alfonsi and Pelley have been fired in the past two weeks.
(Jai Lennard/CBS News via Getty Images)Bilton was brought in by embattled CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss to be the new "60 Minutes" head honcho.He got a rude welcome from Pelley, who told him he had "slender" qualifications and had harsher words for Weiss, who was not present at the meeting.According to Stahl, Whitaker and Wertheim, no explanation was offered for the departures of Simon and Mihailovich, whom they described as "strong leaders who everyone respected.""As far as we can tell – because no explanation has ever been offered, they were expelled because they fought for our ‘60 Minutes...