On Wednesday evening, correspondents and producers from “60 Minutes” descended on the Lincoln Center in Manhattan for the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, where the storied newsmagazine celebrated 10 nominations for its just-concluded season. Among those attending was correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who flew in from Texas after earning a nomination for her segment, “Character A.I.”
Yet hours before the event, Alfonsi, a decade-long veteran of the program, went public with a sharp rebuke of CBS News leadership, confirming her long-anticipated departure from the program after her contract expired over the weekend and urging colleagues to "hold the line" against corporate intrusion.
When Scott Pelley took the Emmy’s stage on Wednesday to present the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship, he hinted at the day’s events. “There have been many great ‘60 Minutes’ correspondents over the years,” he said, specifically shouting out Alfonsi, who received a big round of applause from the audience. As the camera panned to the CBS News section of the crowd, Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss wasn’t seen with her colleagues. Network spokespeople declined to say earlier in the day whether Weiss planned to appear at the awards ceremony, an annual affair most network chiefs attend to celebrate and publicly support the work of their journalists.
Alfonsi’s decision to speak out appears to have stemmed, in part, from the manner in which CBS handled her exit behind the scenes. Indeed, Status has learned…
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