Bari Weiss, who recently took over as managing editor at CBS News, told news staff that she retracted a “60 Minutes” report on the “horrible treatment” of detainees forced by the Trump administration from the United States to prisons in El Salvador “because we were not ready.”
About three hours before airtime on Sunday, “60 Minutes” announced it was postponing a segment in which correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi interviews deportees sent by the Trump administration to the Center for Counterterrorism (CECOT) prison in El Salvador. A CBS News representative said Sunday that the broadcast was suspended because “we believe additional reporting is needed.” The network said the CECOT report, which it had previously touted as documenting the “brutal and tortuous conditions” at the facility, would be aired in the future.
Weiss requested “numerous changes to the segment” and abruptly changed the coverage on Saturday, The New York Times reported. Among Weiss’ suggestions was to include an interview with Chief of Staff Stephen Miller or another senior Trump administration official. Weiss provided Miller’s contact information to the “60 Minutes” team working on the CECOT segment, the newspaper said. Alfonsi said he has already reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department for comment.
In an editorial call Monday morning, Weiss explained to CBS News staff why he was covering the story. But it’s unclear why Weiss — who must have known about the CECOT segment for weeks — felt an urgent need to take down the “60 Minutes” report the day before it was scheduled to air, even though CBS News had already heavily promoted the segment.
“This article presents very strong testimony about abuse at CECOT, which has already been reported in the (New York) Times and elsewhere,” she said, according to a person familiar with her remarks.
Weiss continued, “The public knows that Venezuelans are treated badly in this prison, so we need to do more to cover this topic in two months. This is 60 Minutes.” We need to make every effort to document principals and put them on camera. ”
“The only newsrooms I’m interested in running are ones that respectfully engage in controversial disagreements on the most troubling editorial matters and, importantly, assume the best intentions of their colleagues. Anything less is absolutely unacceptable,” Weiss said. She also said, “For me, the audience comes first, not the list schedule. That’s my North Star, and I hope it’s the North Star of everyone in this newsroom.”
Variety has reached out to CBS News for additional comment.
Mr. Alfonsi said in an email to colleagues at CBS on Sunday that he viewed Mr. Weiss’s decision to retract the CECOT article as motivated by political rather than journalistic concerns.
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS lawyers and standards and practices,” Alfonsi wrote in the message, first reported by the Wall Street Journal. “Factually correct. In my view, retracting it now, after meeting all our rigorous internal checks, is a political decision, not an editorial one.”
Alfonsi also wrote, “We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Viewers expect it. If it is not aired without a credible explanation, the public will correctly perceive this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a week of political silence.”
Weiss’ move to withdraw the CECOT proposal came after President Trump publicly complained on “60 Minutes” of what he perceived to be unfair treatment. Trump last week slammed the Ellisons on “60 Minutes,” writing in a Dec. 16 post on his Truth Social account: “To those who consider themselves close to the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse than they have ever treated me since the so-called ‘takeover.’ If they were my friends, I wouldn’t want to meet them!”
President Trump previously slammed Leslie Stahl’s “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Dec. 7 with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a former Trump supporter who has recently criticized the president on a variety of issues. The president wrote on Truth Social that Stahl, a “Trump hater,” “interviewed a traitor who was very unprepared and made a lot of confused and really stupid statements.” “But my real problem with this show, not some low-IQ traitor, was that Paramount’s new ownership of 60 Minutes would allow a show like this to air. They’re no better than the old ownership,” Trump said.
David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, trying to persuade shareholders to reject the Netflix and WBD deal that would have bought Warner Bros. Studio operations and HBO Max.
Any M&A deal between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount or Netflix would require approval from regulatory authorities, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the FTC. President Trump also vowed to be “committed” to approving the deal.
In October, David Ellison announced a deal reportedly worth $150 million to acquire Weiss’ anti-woke news organization, the Free Press, and appointed Weiss as top editorial executive at CBS News. These moves were seen as aimed at improving CBS News’ position towards President Trump and the MAGA movement.
In her first on-air hosting gig for CBS News, Weiss hosted a “town hall” on Dec. 13 with Erica Kirk, CEO of conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA and widow of Charlie Kirk. CBS News announced last week that it was launching a similar event series called “Things That Matter,” with scheduled guests including VP JD Vance and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “We believe the majority of Americans are hungry for honest conversations and civil, passionate debate,” Weiss said in the town hall announcement. “This series is for them.”
Brian Steinberg contributed to this article.
