'If you fall silent, the country is doomed': CBS News' Scott Pelley stresses courage as network faces pressure campaign [View all]
Source: CNN Business
Published 9:23 PM EDT, Sat June 7, 2025
CNN — A climate of fear is perceptible in the United States today, and it must be resisted no matter what, CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley says. “People are silencing themselves for fear that the government will retaliate against them, and that’s not the America that we all love,” Pelley told Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview after CNN’s Saturday telecast of “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
The Broadway play, which recounts CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow’s unflinching 1954 broadcasts about Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Cold War witch hunts, has stirred comparisons between McCarthyism and Trumpism, and between the CBS network then and now. Fear and courage “are the two themes that run through both of these moments in American history,” Pelley told CNN’s Cooper.
“The most important thing is to have the courage to speak, to not let fear permeate the country so that everyone suddenly becomes silent,” the former “CBS Evening News” anchor added. “If you have the courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is doomed.” Cooper asked Pelley, a nearly 40-year veteran of CBS: “Do you still believe in journalism? Do you still believe in the role of journalists?” “It is the only thing that’s gonna save the country,” Pelley responded. “You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done.”
Cooper, who also works alongside Pelley as a correspondent on “60 Minutes,” anchored a discussion about the state of journalism after the Broadway telecast Saturday night. One inescapable topic was President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against CBS News. Trump filed a legally dubious lawsuit against CBS over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris last fall.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/07/media/scott-pelley-good-night-good-luck
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