Letters to the Editor: Community Town Hall Rears Ugliness, Wildlife Care, and “60 Minutes” Stood for Professionalism Against Chaos

The Ugly San Pedran

Attending the recent Peck Park Town Hall–regarding the establishment of a substantial, supportive recovery center on Western Avenue–I saw the Ugly San Pedran rear his self-imprisoned head in all its fear. From the standing-room-only back of our hall, he shouted out his violence to context and righteously denied belonging to any neighborhood outside his own narrow vision of what may constitute a neighbor. He also did violence to that wee little voice inside of him that does still understand: We belong to the greater society that creates our neighborhood, and sustains it.

Erik Kongshaug

Point Fermin

Please Don’t Feed the Ducks

Today I walked into the post office at Weymouth corners. On my return home I (stopped) at Averill Park with the ducks. Those waddlers appeared at my feet. I told them hello, I can’t feed you.

Ten minutes later a mother with a toddler starts unloading a plethora of chips all all across the path for the ducks.

I’m not afraid of squirrels or ducks. Just stop feeding them.

P.S. Did you know Englishmen brought squirrels across the Atlantic ocean because they missed them in Vespucci America.

P.S.S. There’s always bird flu and plague.

Mark A. Nelson

San Pedro

Scott Pelley released a statement on his firing.  Powerful. 

New statement sent to CBS News staff from 

Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS. 

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all. 

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley