Call it Game of … Microphones?
“60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Scott Pelley’s vocal pushback against CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss’s moves to shake up the outlet have put the duo at risk of being fired, The Post has learned.
Both veteran correspondents could get the boot as Weiss, who has run the network since October, works to revamp “60 Minutes,” said sources with knowledge of the matter — who compared the ongoing intrigue to “Game of Thrones”-style drama.
“It’s going to be a war,” a network insider told The Post. “They don’t think their s–t stinks,” the person said of the “60 Minutes” staff.
CBS News is willing to buy out contracts of talent and executives, sources said. Alfonsi’s is up in a few months. It could not immediately be learned when Pelley’s contract is set to expire.
The correspondents did not respond to requests for comment. CBS News did not immediately comment.
Alfonsi irked Weiss by fighting the boss’ efforts to strengthen a recent report on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, while Pelley has put a target on his back for a drumroll of commentary criticizing CBS News’ new leadership, sources said.
Weiss is overseeing all the important political and cultural stories produced by the network — including “60 Minutes,” sources said, noting that the exec now takes part in a new Monday meeting with the show’s executive producer Tanya Simon.
That’s a sharp departure from the “60 Minutes” tradition of operating as a kingdom unto itself for decades, when the show’s executive producer was the only person overseeing the show’s journalism.
“CBS News is allergic to changes – especially ‘60 Minutes’ people,” said the network insider.
Weiss, her deputies Charles Forelle and Adam Rubenstein and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski have been facing an increasingly defiant staff — who “don’t think Bari Weiss is qualified to be their boss,” said the source.
“60 Minutes” staffers — which includes veteran producers and correspondents like Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker, along with Alfonsi and Pelley — are said to be especially disdainful, voicing serious doubts about Weiss’ qualifications for the job.
CBS sources have griped that their new 41-year-old boss — who became editor in chief after Paramount Skydance bought her contrarian website The Free Press for $150 million — lacks television experience.
Network insders have also scrutinized Weiss’ journalism chops — noting her background is in opinion writing, not reporting — and taken exception with her vocal political views. A strong supporter of Israel, Weiss has described herself as a “Zionist fanatic.”
An editor in chief should be “impartial” or at least “not have a bias,” a CBS source said.
Insiders said Alfonsi and Pelley may be betting they can simply “wait out” Weiss.
“Everyone at CBS News knows there will be a boss every two years,” one person said, citing a revolving door of news leaders from Susan Zirinsky and Neeraj Khemlani to Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews and Wendy McMahon.
“She’s becoming a headache and Ellison doesn’t need a headache,” the insider opined. “They will do the bare minimum in appeasing Bari Weiss in the hopes she flames out.”
Another source said the strategy could backfire as Ellison appears to have given Weiss wide leeway to shake things up.
“Everybody has a boss and they need to realize that Bari Weiss is theirs,” the person added.
The in-house turmoil has leaked into the press. Last month, Weiss shelved Alfonsi’s segment on the Trump administration’s deportation of migrants to CECOT.
The editor in chief criticized the piece, saying it wasn’t “comprehensive and fair” and lacked comment from the Trump administration.
While the piece ran Sunday with updates, sources with knowledge of the matter said Weiss and Cibrowski were frustrated with how Alfonsi and her team “dragged their feet” on making the changes.
The person said Alfonsi initially “refused” to make any changes and dug in her heels — blowing up at Weiss’ trusted deputy editor Rubenstein, a Free Press and New York Times alum.
“You don’t get to produce me!” Alfonsi yelled at Rubenstein as he explained a note from Weiss, according to Puck News.
She also reportedly accused him of being “a mouthpiece” for the Trump administration and asked him whether he had ever produced a minute of TV news before. He responded that he had, and told her not to take anything personally, the report said.
Prior to the flare-up, Alfonsi wrote colleagues that she thought the move to shelve the story was politically motivated — not driven by journalistic standards. Pelley also weighed in, reportedly saying Weiss needed to take her job “more seriously” during an internal meeting last month.
The CECOT piece aired Sunday with 3 minutes of additional material, including updated data about the prisoners deported to CECOT and information that one of the detainees interviewed in the report had tattoos of a swastika and the number 666, which is associated with the Aryan Brotherhood
The back-and-forth over the CECOT story came as Paramount Skydance has been trying to prevent Netflix from buying Warner Bros. Discovery. The Trump administration supports Paramount in the politically charged bidding war, as The Post previously reported.
Meanwhile, Pelley’s running commentary on the state of journalism has irked Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, who is said to “not be happy” with the reporter’s remarks.
At a commencement speech last summer, Pelley raged against President Trump and proclaimed that journalism is “under attack.” He also sounded off about the state of “60 Minutes” at a recent awards ceremony, asserting Paramount hasn’t had any influence on its reporting.
