Former “60 Minutes” chief Bill Owens applauded correspondent Scott Pelley for challenging his bosses in a headline-grabbing meeting.
The comments came Monday night at the New York Press Club’s annual dinner in Manhattan, where Owens — who resigned from the network last year amid tanking ratings for “CBS Evening News,” which he attempted to overhaul — accepted an award.
“Scott can smell a fraud from a mile away. He stood up the way I did a year ago and I couldn’t be prouder of him,” he said.
“And I know all of the people at ’60 Minutes’ couldn’t be more proud of him.”
He was referring to a Monday morning clash between Pelley and newly installed “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton.
Sources told The Post that Pelley accused CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss of “murdering ’60 Minutes’” and belittled Bilton’s credentials, prompting the exec to end the meeting abruptly.
Owens also decried last week’s layoffs of staff including “60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.
“They were fired by people who don’t even know what we do and don’t actually care,” said Owens, who called Weiss “an opinion writer best known for being an ideologue” — the latest in a stream of criticism directed at her from ex-employees.
Owens concluded by defending the culture of “60 Minutes” and criticizing the new direction of CBS News, where Weiss took the helm last fall with a mandate to bring balance to the network.
He described the network and “60 Minutes” as “institutions, not places where partisans and ideologues should be employed.”
“Look, I’m not saying ‘60 Minutes’ is perfect. I’m certainly not. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve always owned up to them,” he added.
“But I can tell you there’s a rigor in how ‘60 Minutes’ approaches every story. That isn’t what this crew is looking to do.”
Before his exit, Owens reimagined the “Evening News” to be a “mini ’60 Minutes’” hosted by John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois.
The duo tanked, with ratings consistently hitting below 4 million as the show trailed rivals on NBC and ABC.
Since Weiss tapped Tony Dokoupil to anchor the “Evening News,” the newscast has seen some stumbles but regained more than 100,000 viewers — an increase of 3% compared to the final four months of the prior iteration earlier this season.
The remarks were Owens’ first public comments since Weiss oversaw a sweeping shakeup of “60 Minutes.”
In addition to correspondents Alfonsi and Vega, executive producer Tanya Simon, senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich, veteran producer Guy Campanile and digital chief Matthew Polvoy have all exited.
The Post has sought comment from CBS News.
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