A political move by the head of CBS News, who is known for supporting MAGA, might have caused the quick removal of a 60 Minutes report that criticized Donald Trump. This is according to an email from one of the show’s reporters.
CBS had planned to air a report on 60 Minutes about a prison in El Salvador called CECOT, which holds immigrants who were sent back to the U.S. by Trump.
The network said the story about the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT in Spanish, will now be shown later, claiming they needed more information.
However, some reports say that Bari Weiss, the new editor-in-chief at CBS, made the decision to cancel the segment just three hours before it was scheduled, which was seen as a political move and not a standard editorial choice.
Sharyn Alfonsi, a 60 Minutes journalist, sent an email saying that Weiss “spiked our story” and that the reason was political.
The email was posted on X by a media analyst named Brian Stelter, with Alfonsi stating that her team had asked Weiss to explain the last-minute decision but she didn’t respond.
Alfonsi, who has worked on 60 Minutes for 10 years, sent the email to other correspondents like Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, and Anderson Cooper.
She said the story was carefully checked and was factually correct, and warned that if the government’s agreement to be interviewed became a requirement, the network would lose its editorial independence.
A journalist named Dylan Byers suggested the report was not favorable to the Trump administration, and that Weiss decided to hold the story after seeing it.
He also questioned the claim that more reporting was needed, saying the story had gone through all the checks.
Max Tani from Semaphor added that Weiss had issues with the piece and that the network was waiting for comments from White House officials.
Weiss told the New York Times that she wanted to make sure all stories were the best they could be, and that holding stories that aren’t ready for any reason is common in newsrooms.
She promised to air the important segment when it was ready.
Alfonsi also mentioned that the 60 Minutes team had tried to get comments from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security.
She argued that the silence from these government agencies was a strategic move to stop the story.
In her memo, Alfonsi said that the team had a responsibility to the people who shared their stories and that abandoning them now was a betrayal of journalism’s core values.
She signed off saying that she cared too much about the show to let it be destroyed without a fight.
A teaser for the segment has been removed from 60 Minutes’ social media but is still online.
The video shows difficult scenes from deportations earlier this year. Alfonsi is heard saying, “It began as soon as the planes landed. The deportees thought they were headed back to Venezuela, but instead they were shackled and delivered to CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador, where they told 60 Minutes they endured four months of hell.”
Alfonsi also mentioned a past 60 Minutes story that was canceled.
In 1995, the show had planned to report on a man who exposed tobacco company Brown & Williamson for hiding the dangers of their cigarettes. However, the network’s lawyers were worried about legal issues and potential damage to the brand. The story was later covered by the Wall Street Journal and became the movie The Insider.
Alfonsi wrote that CBS had canceled the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, which nearly damaged the show’s reputation.
She said this current decision was similar, but for political reasons.
In July, Trump won a major victory against 60 Minutes.
Paramount Global paid $16 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle a $20 billion lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.
In July this year, Trump, who is 79 years old, won a big win against the famous news show 60 Minutes.
Paramount Global paid $16 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit that started at $20 billion.
The lawsuit was about how a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was edited.
Trump was not happy with how Harris’s answer about Israel’s war in Gaza was edited.
He thought it was unfair and misleading. CBS said they followed normal news rules when they cut the interview for timing.
As part of the agreement, both sides decided that in the future, 60 Minutes will release transcripts of interviews with U.S. presidential candidates after the interviews air.
But they will redact parts if needed for legal or national security reasons.
After the lawsuit ended, Paramount finished merging with Skydance, owned by David Ellison.
This happened just as Paramount, which owns CBS, is fighting a big battle to take over Warner Bros.
Discovery. The fight is worth billions of dollars.
On December 8, Paramount made a hostile, all-cash offer to buy Warner Bros. for $108.4 billion, valuing each share at $30.
Meanwhile, Netflix had already agreed to buy Warner’s Studios and HBO Max for $72 billion. Warner executives still think that deal is better.
Last week, the Warner board told shareholders to reject the Paramount offer.
The offer was made by David Ellison and his father, Larry, who is a friend of President Trump.
Warner executives said Paramount had “consistently misled” them, called the deal “illusory,” and warned that accepting it could be dangerous for the company.
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