Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss defended the move, stating the story needed more reporting and principal interviews. Photo / Getty Images
CBS News abruptly pulled an investigative 60 Minutes segment on the Trump administration’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison after the Trump administration refused to grant an interview, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.
The decision came directly from the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, according to an internal email sent to producers from the segment’s correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, who called the decision tantamount to handing the White House a “kill switch”.
“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Alfonsi wrote.
Weiss defended the decision in a Monday morning editorial meeting.
“As of course you all have seen, I held a 60 Minutes story, and I held that story because it wasn’t ready,” Weiss told staffers, according to a person who attended the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share non-public comments.
“The story presented very powerful testimony of abuse at CECOT, but that testimony has already been reported on by places like the Times. The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment in this prison. So to run a story on this subject, two months later, we simply need to do more.”
She continued: “And this is 60 Minutes. We need to be able to make every effort to get the principals on the record and on camera. To me, our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else, and that is my North Star, and I hope it’s the North Star of every person in this newsroom.”
The segment’s production team had sent questions and requested comment from the White House, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for the story, according to the email. But the administration declined to grant the journalists an interview.
“Government silence is a statement, not a VETO,” Alfonsi wrote. “Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical manoeuvre designed to kill the story.”
“The 60 Minutes report on Inside CECOT will air in a future broadcast,” a CBS News spokeswoman said in a statement. “We determined it needed additional reporting.”
Alfonsi did not respond to a request for comment.
The segment, titled Inside CECOT, was set to cover the Trump administration’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), one of El Salvador’s most notorious prisons. The network had teased the segment for days, but by Sunday the trailer and promotional materials had been removed from CBS News’ website.
The original preview said that Alfonsi spoke with released prisoners, who describe “brutal and torturous conditions” inside the prison.
Hundreds of Venezuelans who have been deported to El Salvador under Trump’s immigration crackdown have endured systematic torture and abuse – including sexual assault – during their detention, according to a November report by Human Rights Watch. The report said conditions at CECOT breached the United Nations’ minimal rules for the treatment of prisoners.
In the email to her team, Alfonsi wrote that she learned on Saturday that Weiss killed the story, which she says was screened five times and cleared by both the standards department and the network’s attorneys.
Weiss was named CBS’s top editor this fall after David Ellison’s newly formed Paramount Skydance bought The Free Press, the opinion website she founded, for US$150 million ($258.5m).
While the two properties are still technically separate, Weiss runs both.
Her early days at the network have been marked by rapid changes, including restructuring and layoffs. Weiss launched a town hall series, including an interview with Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Earlier in December, CBS promoted Tony Dokoupil, who has co-anchored CBS Mornings since 2019, to anchor CBS Evening News, one of the most prominent jobs in television journalism. Ellison is the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people and a Trump political ally.
In the email, Alfonsi said the sources in the segment “risked their lives to speak with us”. She added: “We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories.”
“If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interviewed,’ then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state,” Alfonsi wrote.
“It is factually correct,” she added. “In my view, pulling it now - after every rigorous internal check has been met - is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Democratic critics of Weiss were swift to condemn what they characterised as censoring a story to appease the Trump administration.
“What is happening to CBS is a terrible embarrassment and if executives think they can build shareholder value by avoiding journalism that might offend the Mad King they are about to learn a tough lesson,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) wrote on X. “This is still America and we don’t enjoy bullshit like this.”
Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts) said in a social media post that it’s a “sad day for 60 Minutes and journalism,” and said that the Trump administration’s involvement in approving Skydance’s $8 billion deal to buy Paramount led to this. Skydance agreed to concessions to get the deal approved by the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission, chaired by Brendan Carr.
The company promised a review of CBS content, appointed an ombudsman with Republican Party ties to interrogate claims of bias and said it would refrain from diversity initiatives. Carr had previously threatened to block any mergers for companies engaged in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
“This is what government censorship looks like,” Markey wrote. “Trump approved the Paramount-Skydance merger. A few months later, CBS’s new editor in chief kills a deeply reported story critical of Trump.”
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