Scott Pelley fired by '60 Minutes': 3 takeaways.

Veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley was fired by the broadcast's new executive producer Tuesday night. Here are three takeaways:

What just happened?

Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of the beleaguered broadcast, lowered the boom Tuesday night with a letter, distributed to the media, writing, "[Y]ou hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt," referring to Pelley's denunciations of CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and Bilton during a Monday morning editorial all-hands meeting (where Pelley charged that Weiss is "murdering" the show and called Bilton’s broadcast news experience “slender"). That outburst was precipitated by the firing last week of four top producers of the program, as well as two other correspondents. Late Tuesday night, Pelley had his own statement, contending that "the leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable," while adding that Weiss is destroying "60 Minutes" "apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration." Pelley had several other parting shots, among them — that top management had told him "to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story" (he did not say which one) and that "incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new [CBS News] 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." (No specifics about what and when.)

This is the biggest blow yet

Going back 58 years to its founding, "60 Minutes" has had just a few on-air reporters whose style (Mike Wallace), approach (Steve Kroft) or tone (Bob Simon) tended to personify whole eras, whole decades, at the show. Since joining "60 Minutes" in 2003 — after years of covering the two Gulf wars, the White House and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, where he reported near the north tower just as it collapsed — Pelley has been that figure. His was the first name on the broadcast each Sunday evening; his stories often led. Moreover, the former "Evening News" anchor hasn't been just the face of "60 Minutes," but of CBS News. He's part of that Texas tradition so deeply embedded in the DNA of this news division, and whose Lone Star predecessors included Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer and Walter Cronkite. Like them, there was always a certain civility in Pelley's on-air style, but a certain Texas scrappiness and independence too. Firing Pelley, 68 — and firing him under these circumstances — isn't just a blow to "60 Minutes," but actually to an entire culture at CBS News' West 57th Street headquarters. And to an entire proud history.

What's next? (And who's next?)

America's TV news industry is holding a collective breath this morning because what happens next at "60 Minutes" could (and will) impact what happens to every other TV reporter who sticks a mic in front of a politician or newsmaker. "60 Minutes" has remained the paragon — the symbol — of TV news for more than half a century. Without "60," then what? The question isn't merely a practical one (if it goes away, what will CBS air in its place every Sunday at 7 p.m.?) but also an existential one. The White House, and Weiss, have set a bull's-eye on the traditions and practices of CBS News which, to an extent, are the same traditions and practices of an entire industry. But on a more immediate level, the firing puts the three remaining "60 Minutes" correspondents in an untenable position: To stay and become part of the dismembered future there? Or to fall on their swords (and become unemployed)? Lesley Stahl — who joined in 1991 and was apparently not at the Monday meeting — recently signed a short-term deal, as did Bill Whitaker, who (by some accounts) had wanted to retire after the end of last season. Could Jon Wertheim (who joined in 2017) be the last correspondent left standing? Will there be a broadcast left to stand for?