CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls '60 Minutes' story, sparking outcry

CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls '60 Minutes' story, sparking outcry The Free Press' Honestly with Bari Weiss (pictured) hosts Senator Ted Cruz presented by Uber and X on January 18, 2025 in Washington, DC. Leigh Vogel/Getty Images North America hide caption toggle caption Just a day and a half before it was set to be broadcast, new CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a planned 60 Minutes investigative segment centering on allegations of abuses at an El Salvador detention center where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants last March. Weiss told colleagues this weekend the piece - planned for Sunday night's show - could not run without an on-the-record comment from a Trump administration official. That's according to two people with knowledge of events at the network who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing job security. The correspondent on the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, condemned the decision in an email to 60 Minutes colleagues on Sunday evening, saying she believed it was "not an editorial decision, it is a political one." (The email was obtained by NPR and other news organizations.) A press release sent out Friday morning from CBS News' publicity team had promoted the story, promising a look inside CECOT, "one of El Salvador's harshest prisons." The network ran a video promotion which has since been taken down on the air and on social media. The announcement cited "the brutal and tortuous conditions" some recently released deportees said they endured there. The release has since been revised. The story had undergone repeated formal reviews by senior producers and news executives, as well as people from the legal and standards division, according to the two people at CBS, echoing Alfonsi's account. Alfonsi wrote that she and her colleagues on the story had sought comments and interviews from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department. "Government silence is a statement, not a VETO," Alfonsi wrote in the email. "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 did not respond to an emailed request for comment.) A CBS spokesperson declined comment but noted that the revised programming announcement said the story would air at a later date. As a private citizen, Donald Trump sued CBS last year over the editing of 60 Minutes 's interview with his opponent in the presidential elections, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Earlier this year, the network's news chief and top executive at 60 Minutes resigned as the network explored settlement talks with Trump's legal team. Paramount's previous owners paid Trump $16 million to settle the case, although legal observers almost unanimously agreed he had little chance of prevailing in court. (The settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing.) That settlement helped controlling owner Shari Redstone smooth the sale to the Ellison family through a federal anti-trust review. Weiss's arrival at the network this year under...

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