Bari Weiss Spikes 60 Minutes Segment At Last Minute

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Black Rock Crumbles In an unprecedented last-minute intervention, rookie CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss spiked a 60 Minutes segment on the experiences of Alien Enemies Act detainees at CECOT in El Salvador. The announcement that the “Inside CECOT” segment would not run came only hours before airtime Sunday: The segment had already been widely promoted by CBS News, including in a since-deleted press release ... ... and in a promotional teaser: In a blistering email to her colleagues, 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi pinned the blame on Weiss for spiking her CECOT segment: The official line from CBS News is that the segment “needed additional reporting.” Among the issues Weiss raised with the segment: She reportedly objected to the segment’s use of the word “migrants” to describe the Venezuelan nationals deported to CECOT because they were in the U.S. illegally, the NYT reported . But more alarmingly, Weiss bent over backwards to give the Trump White House another bite at the apple to respond to the segment even though the administration had already declined to comment to 60 Minutes , according to the NYT: One of Ms. Weiss’s suggestions was to include a fresh interview with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, or a similarly high-ranking Trump administration official, two of the people said. Ms. Weiss provided contact information for Mr. Miller to the “60 Minutes” staff. It was this new Weiss-imposed hurdle that especially infuriated Alfonsi. “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 in her email. The Trump administration had an extraordinary and corrupt level of involvement with the recent $8 billion sale of CBS’ parent company Paramount. To get past the Trump-controlled FCC, the purchaser Skydance agreed to appoint an ombudsman, review the network’s content, and pare back DEI initiatives. The ombudsman ended up being a conservative think tanker with longtime Republican Party ties. Weiss, widely seen as being tasked with shifting CBS News toward a more administration friendly posture, is in the midst of a major overhaul of the news division. A Revealing Oops in the Abrego Garcia Case A quick rundown on developments in the criminal case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Abrego Garcia became the first criminal defendant to cite White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ admission to Vanity Fair that President Trump was engaged in “score settling.” It came in a filing in support of his claim of vindictive prosecution. In the filing - a motion to enforce subpoenas for testimony from top DOJ officials - Abrego Garcia’s attorneys let slip that the judge in his criminal case had ruled earlier this month in a still-sealed order that associate deputy attorney general Aakash Singh had a “leading role in the government’s decision to prosecute”...

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