Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim say they’ll ‘stay and fight’ at 60 Minutes

Stahl and Whitaker had been wild cards after new CBS News management fired multiple people in recent weeks Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim announced on Friday their decision to remain at CBS’s 60 Minutes after the tumultuous firings of several of the show’s senior correspondents and top producers. The three correspondents issued a joint statement, saying: “We have had a hard time deciding whether to stay … We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die. We have been grieving because this whole mess has wounded and damaged the broadcast. “We want to stay and fight,” they added. Stahl, 84, and Whitaker, 74, had remained wildcards as they had not commented on the uproar that has plagued the show since the new management of CBS News ousted correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega and producers Tanya Simon, Draggan Mihailovich and Matthew Polevoy last Thursday as part of a total restructuring of the show. Then, on Tuesday evening, the network terminated veteran Scott Pelley, telling him in a legalistic email message that he was being fired for “cause” because of his conduct in an explosive meeting a day earlier