It’s been two months since 60 Minutes gave Scott Pelley the ax, but the former newsmagazine anchor is now taking a proverbial victory lap after winning a key award for one of his segments on the series.
The 2026 National Edward R. Murrow Awards have been announced by the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Pelley-led segment, “The Bus on Route 62,” took home the top honors in the “Excellence in Writing” category.
Pelley was the lead reporter on the segment, which investigated a strike by Russia on a Ukrainian bus on Palm Sunday while it was packed with civilians. Pelley went on site in Sumy to bear witness to the scene of devastation and interview the survivors and witnesses of the attack, along with prosecutor Vitalii Dovhal.
Watch the full report below.
Pelley was fired from 60 Minutes in June as one of the casualties of the Bari Weiss run as editor-in-chief at CBS News. The news came after Pelley reportedly had a heated encounter with new executive producer Nick Bolton in which he said, “[Weiss] does not love this place; she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”
Following Pelley’s ouster, he revealed a lengthy response on social media in which he claimed, “Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend [of a show] aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. The waste is heartbreaking.”
According to recent reporting, Pelley might be back on screen again, though, sooner than later; it seems former 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens, who’d resigned from the show in April 2025 over concerns that he would no longer have editorial independence under Weiss’ tenure at the top, is considering recruiting Pelley for a new rival program.