Good morning and Happy Tuesday! And just like that, it’s June.

As you may have heard by now, there was quite the blowup at 60 Minutes yesterday, spurred, no doubt, by the recent firings of Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega, and executive producer Tanya Simon. And all that comes on the heels of the erosion of 60 Minutes’ journalistic independence at the hands of CBS News head Bari Weiss and Paramount chief David Ellison.

Status managed to get its hands on the audio of the dispute, which probably means someone in the staff meeting realized what was happening and hit “record” on their phone, which tickles me to no end. Anyway, not a great start for new EP Nick Bilton, who, like Weiss, has zero qualifications for the role he’s been thrust into, but seemed to think bagels would help smooth things over.

Let’s take a look at how it went.

Woof. But also, all hail Scott Pelley, who has been putting in overtime defending his colleagues from the powers that be at CBS. And I remember when Scott Pelley was the new kid on the block at 60 Minutes.

I vacillate between being glad Mike Wallace isn’t alive to see this shit, and being sad Mike Wallace isn’t here to take part in this shit. Can you imagine what Mike Wallace would have said if some bigwig from CBS told him he was being “rude?”

I also very much appreciate the Kelly Kapoor energy Pelley brought to this meeting.

It’s almost as if Bilton didn’t realize that he’s now in charge of a staff made up of the gold standard of investigative reporters. As Pelley pointed out, “this is not the crowd to dodge.”

We also got this incredible exchange between Pelley and Bilton:

”I’m not intimidated by you. Enjoy the bagels.” That is going to straight to the top of the memes that live in my brain for everyday use.

For former newsroom journalists, it’s great fun, and extremely cathartic, to watch someone of Pelley’s pedigree light up the far less qualified bro who has been put in charge of America’s most trusted investigative outlet. We’ve all had to work with Nick Biltons over the last few decades — guys with little to no understanding of what makes an outlet work, who come in with big ideas of “shaking things up” and getting “hipper and cooler.” It’s infuriating.

For example, Bilton wants to break 60 Minutes up into shorter segments and lean into “gonzo” journalism, which abandons any pretense of objectivity in favor of placing the reporter at the center of the story. Not exactly the kind of journalism that 60 Minutes built its sterling reputation on. And while gonzo journalism worked great for a Hunter S. Thompson dispatch for Rolling Stone, Thompson wasn’t tasked with investigative journalism on behalf of the American people the way 60 Minutes traditionally has been.

Also, there’s this:

In all seriousness, this is terrible news for journalism. Replacing old-school investigative journalists with decades of experience with pet columnists (and worse… podcasters), who have neither the education nor the training to run or participate in a newsroom, is going to harm all of us.

Which brings me to another point that I made over on Bluesky yesterday: We are losing journalists at an alarming rate. Every time I see someone saying, “Why aren’t more news outlets covering this?” I want to scream from the rooftops, “Because the journalism industry has been decimated!”

Every time we see news of layoffs in the news industry, you can rest assured that not all of those people will find another job in journalism. I personally know dozens of people who used to cover a regular beat, who are now out of the industry altogether. That means fewer people covering crime, politics, the local statehouse, sports, cops, budgetary matters, legislation, etc. Sometimes, I lie awake at night wondering how many huge scandals have gone unexposed, simply because we no longer have enough journalists to dig around in the muck.

With each reporter we lose, we not only lose boots-on-the-ground journalism but also decades of institutional knowledge and the personal connections with sources needed to root out those stories. And, experienced journalists are not getting hired into new roles, merely taking their expertise to another outlet. Instead, they’re being replaced by younger and cheaper reporters, many of whom are newly out of college. So who trains the next generation of journalists? Good question.

Add into that the emergence of AI and the pivot from investigative journalism to “media” being undertaken by J-schools across the country (including my alma mater), and we wind up with a bunch of people in important roles who have never practiced actual journalism, just something akin to journalism that falls under the umbrella of “media.” I remember when the industry was aghast to learn that ESPN’s Darren Rovell was merely recycling chunks from press releases and inserting them into his articles. I’d venture to guess that a fair number of people in media these days think that’s an acceptable practice, simply because no one has told them it’s not.

As a result of all this, we have fewer journalists doing fewer investigations into malfeasance and wrongdoing. The only remaining outlets with the manpower to do deep dives and months-long investigations are the big guns, but they’re run by billionaire oligarchs beholden to those in power, like Jeff Bezos, David Ellison, Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Rupert Murdoch.

I could go on for days about this stuff, but I know I’ve said it all before, so I’ll end my rant here. Scott Pelley sticking it to the man felt great, but once the dopamine from his tête-à-tête with Bilton wears off, we’re still stuck with an industry that is floundering dangerously.

In other news: Happy Pride to our trans gender soldiers; Freedom 250 trashes the National Mall; Well done, Jared Polis; and The High Note.

Let’s go.

The guy who can’t do pull-ups or grapevines but thinks trans soldiers shouldn’t serve in the military was handed a loss yesterday by a federal appellate court in his efforts to kick trans people out of the US Military. Happy Pride!

This ruling will certainly be appealed, and it doesn’t address the blocking of trans enlistees, but it’s better than the court siding with the Pentagon.

Also, Pete Hegseth has closed the Pentagon press office, claiming it is now a “classified space.” WTF. Outside of Kash, he’s the most sensitive of all the snowflakes.

If you show up to the National Mall to party with Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida, you might want to wear rubber boots. And bring a tarp…and lots of wet wipes.

Honestly, I can’t think of a better metaphor for America in 2026.

Of course “vandals” are responsible. Just like all those paid protestors showing up for #NoKings rallies and outside ICE facilities concentration camps. Dammit, George Soros!

Less than a week after Colorado election-denier and data-stealer Tina Peters was released from prison, she’s already hit up Trump for a job and is back to peddling the same lie that got her into trouble in the first place.

This is especially funny/outrageous because one of the reasons Polis gave for awarding Peters clemency was that she had “acknowledged her wrongs.” Yeah… maybe not.

Polis, meanwhile, has been censured by his own party over his handling of Peters, and is being hammered by Democrats left and right.

Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.

Serious question: Is this cool or am I just old? I was told recently that liking The Killers is “old and lame.”

This, on the other hand, I know is cool.

Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

Follow Julie on Bluesky and Instagram so she can get another book contract.