On the brand-new ‘Beat the Press,’ we try to make sense of the implosion of ‘60 Minutes’

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On the latest episode of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we take a long look at the implosion of “60 Minutes,” the 58-year-old CBS News staple that has been torn apart by Bari Weiss and her choice to run the program, Nick Bilton.

Why did CBS executives fire Scott Pelley? What are we to make of Pelley’s claim in a New York Times interview that Weiss tried to inject bias and at least one falsehood into his report on the killings of Minneapolis protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents? What’s next for “60 Minutes,” which not only continues to be a ratings leader but actually grew over the past year? Does the new Trump-friendly owner, David Ellison, care about any of this?

Also: World Cup watch parties and our panel’s Rants and Raves. With Emily in the moderator’s chair; our host, Scott Van Voorhis of Contrarian Boston; Lylah Alphonse of The Boston Globe, and me. Our producer extraordinaire is Tonia Magras of Hull Bay Productions.

Extra! Extra! What would Andy think? Check out this special edition of “Beat the Press” in which Emily and her brother, Brian Rooney, talk about how their legendary father would be reacting to the meltdown of “60 Minutes.”

The evisceration of ‘60 Minutes’ greases the skids for David Ellison’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery

Nicholas von Hoffman and James Kilpatrick debate the fate of Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal in 1973.

I’m nearly 70, and I’ve never been a regular viewer of “60 Minutes.” I think of it as a show that my parents watched. Still, the dismantling of the highly rated program at the hands of David Ellison’s designated flunky, Bari Weiss, and her designated flunky, Nick Bilton, has been alarming for anyone who cares about investigative journalism — or, for that matter, democracy.

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I had to laugh at the clueless outrage of conservative commentators over Scott Pelley’s wonderfully hostile confrontation with Bilton. “When a child throws a tantrum, they’re punished,” clucked Isaac Schorr at Mediaite. “When a journalist throws a tantrum, they wait to be called stunning and brave.”

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