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Scott Pelley for 60 Minutes.Credit : Michele Crowe/CBS News
Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley has been fired from CBS following a heated confrontation with the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, who accused the longtime journalist of “ambush,” “hostility” and “misconduct” in a striking termination letter obtained by PEOPLE.
In the letter, which is signed by Bilton, Pelley is informed that his employment with CBS has been “terminated for cause effective immediately.”
“It is a profound disappointment that you rejected that overture and chose ambush instead,” the letter states. “Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt.”
The letter continues by accusing Pelley of showing “performative display[s] of hostility” and having “no interest in contributing to the future success of the show.”
“I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama,” the letter claims. “I am eager to work alongside those who share this goal.”
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” the letter later adds. “And I have heard you.”
The firing comes after Pelley allegedly clashed with Bilton during a tense staff meeting at 60 Minutes, according to The New York Times and The Guardian.
According to those reports, Bilton told staff that CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss “loves 60 Minutes,” prompting Pelley to respond: “She’s murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place, she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”
“She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job,” Pelley reportedly continued, according to The New York Times. “The changes that she’s made at the Evening News have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”
Bilton reportedly responded: “Well, I will show you. That’s what I have to say. That is my plan over the next two weeks. I’ll be meeting with everyone. I’m very excited to meet with everyone, yourself included.”
Shortly after his firing, Pelley reflected on his decades-long commitment to 60 Minutes, in a phone interview with The New York Times, pointing to the risks he took reporting from war zones including Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine.
“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” Pelley told the outlet. “I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.”
Earlier Tuesday, Pelley also criticized CBS News’ current leadership in a statement to The Times, writing, “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.”
Bilton was appointed executive producer last week as part of a broader leadership overhaul at the legacy CBS news program, according to previous reporting by PEOPLE.
PEOPLE has contacted CBS and Pelley for comment.
