During a contentious staff meeting at 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley spoke out sharply, criticizing the judgment and decision-making of CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss and newly appointed executive producer Nick Bilton — the meeting I wrote about yesterday in “The Clock Is Still Ticking… ”

After that meeting, in a letter addressed to Pelley, obtained by NBC News, Bilton wrote: “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you.”

He then added: “I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”

In an interview, Bari Weiss said, “We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose.”

“I’m saddened,” Pelley responded, “to see the transcript of the CBS News morning editorial meeting. Bari Weiss knows what she said is not true.”

“In the meeting on Tuesday, in which I was effectively fired, there was no effort of any kind to ‘find a way back,’ as Weiss said in the editorial meeting,” Pelley said. “At no point did anyone in the Tuesday meeting suggest that there could be steps taken by either side that would lead to a resolution.”

That is the backdrop to Pelley’s reply to millions of viewers.

“There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

“The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“’60’ has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

“The waste is heartbreaking.

“Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

“For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.

“At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

“I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion — a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again — a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

It is important to remember the larger context. The Trump administration has had a relationship with both David Ellison and his father, Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire. CBS is part of Skydance/Paramount, the same company that last year abruptly canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. David Ellison then installed Bari Weiss, a figure with no background in network broadcasting and a long record of criticizing mainstream media, in a position of enormous influence.

Whether one calls it strategy, ideology, or corporate calculation, the pattern is difficult to ignore. Decisions are being made at a major broadcast institution that appear less rooted in journalistic judgment than in political sensitivity and power.

That should concern everyone. If political pressure can reshape a network with CBS’s long history in entertainment and excellence in news reporting, then no media organization is immune. Other outlets can and will be vulnerable to the wishes of those who control the levers of power.