CBS News didn’t fire Scott Pelley because he was doing subpar work. They didn’t fire him because he was a disgruntled, insubordinate employee. No, CBS News fired him because he did what every good journalist is supposed to do.

Scott Pelley spoke truth to power.

It’s risky to speak truth to power. There can be consequences. Just ask all those cowardly Republican Congressmen and Senators who are afraid to speak out against the abuses of power President Trump has been doing since he returned to office. Or better yet, ask the brave Republicans like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, or Thomas Massie who suffered the consequences of telling the world the emperor had no clothes.

Wrong is wrong regardless of who does it. What CBS is doing to please the Trump administration is wrong. And it would be just as wrong if a Democratic president were making FOX News, Newsmax, or other conservative news outlets bow down to them as well.

Paramount, the parent company of CBS, has mimicked the president’s behavior by putting unqualified people in important positions of power. Bari Weiss, the new head of CBS News, has no experience in broadcast news, but she’s now in charge of the Tiffany Network. Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Morley Safer, Harry Reasoner, and countless other journalists in CBS’s storied past must be turning over in their graves.

Likewise, the new man in charge of 60 Minutes, Nick Bilton, has no experience in broadcast news. His journalistic background includes some documentaries and an article he wrote for the New York Times that had so many facts wrong it now contains a 203-word editor’s note and a 98-word correction.

I’m sure that when Pelley spoke out at the staff meeting, he was well aware of what the outcome could be. After all, Weiss had already fired two 60 Minutes producers and quality journalists like Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. Alfonsi is the journalist who did the story that Weiss spiked about the torture in Salvadoran prisons. A story that eventually aired after the outcry from journalists and a large segment of the public.

Vega was not only the first and only Hispanic correspondent at 60 Minutes, but also an award-winning journalist with experience as a network White House correspondent and news anchor.

Authoritarian governments need to control the news to stay in power. And while Donald Trump hasn’t totally succeeded in doing that yet, he’s made significant strides in that direction, and it is on the way to making more.

The staff at outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, OAN and other operations act more like administration press agents than critical thinking reporters.

Major newspapers no longer publish editorials that may be critical of this administration. I spoke with a newspaperman I know who tells me that any political cartoon that mocks or criticizes the president will most likely never see the printed page.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns 177 television stations, including Fox 42 here in Omaha, and Nexstar Communications, which owns 200 stations, refused to air Jimmy Kimmel for a time after a joke Kimmel made displeased the president.

Whether it’s blatant submission to the president or a form of self-censoring, many news organizations don’t want to deal with the hassle of upsetting the man who would be king. News outlets that used to be bold are starting to cower, afraid of getting fined by the FCC or harassed by Trump’s MAGA minions. America has never seen the attacks on the First Amendment that we are seeing now.

The attacks on the media may soon get much worse. Larry Ellison, the head of Paramount Skydance, the company that owns CBS, is looking to buy Warner Brothers Discovery which includes CNN. Media observers fear that if Ellison gets his paws on CNN, he will do to it what he did to CBS.

I’ll bet Scott Pelley ends up with his own podcast and website. Maybe ABC or NBC will give him a shot. Bari Weiss may have taken him off the payroll, but I don’t think they’ll be able to silence him. Scott Pelley is not going to be going away any time soon.

But that’s just the way people whose mission in life is to speak truth to power are.

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.

Opinions expressed by columnists in The Daily Record are not necessarily those of its management or staff, and do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation. Any errors or omissions should be called to our attention so that they may be corrected. Contact us at news@omahadailyrecord.com.