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Quoted By:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/21/media/60-minutes-cecot-bari-weiss-cbs-sharyn-alfonsi
“60 Minutes” just suffered a severe blow to its credibility. Now one of its own correspondents fears the program is being “dismantled,” and some employees are threatening to quit.
The trigger: CBS News suddenly shelved a segment featuring the accounts of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
The correspondent who reported the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, said in an internal memo that “the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.”
According to Alfonsi and two CBS sources who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity, the story had been fully fact-checked and legally vetted by the time the network publicized it on Friday afternoon.
But CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss weighed in with questions on Saturday morning, the two sources said. Alfonsi said Weiss “spiked the story.”
One of the main issues Weiss raised was the lack of a response from the Trump administration to the reporting.
According to Alfonsi, “we requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department.”
But the administration did not engage, which concerned Weiss. At one point, Weiss suggested that the program try to interview White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and provided Miller’s number, one of the CBS sources said.
Alfonsi argued in her memo that the administration’s strategic silence cannot be allowed to become a “veto” of a critical story.
“Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” she wrote. “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.”
“60 Minutes” just suffered a severe blow to its credibility. Now one of its own correspondents fears the program is being “dismantled,” and some employees are threatening to quit.
The trigger: CBS News suddenly shelved a segment featuring the accounts of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
The correspondent who reported the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, said in an internal memo that “the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.”
According to Alfonsi and two CBS sources who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity, the story had been fully fact-checked and legally vetted by the time the network publicized it on Friday afternoon.
But CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss weighed in with questions on Saturday morning, the two sources said. Alfonsi said Weiss “spiked the story.”
One of the main issues Weiss raised was the lack of a response from the Trump administration to the reporting.
According to Alfonsi, “we requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department.”
But the administration did not engage, which concerned Weiss. At one point, Weiss suggested that the program try to interview White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and provided Miller’s number, one of the CBS sources said.
Alfonsi argued in her memo that the administration’s strategic silence cannot be allowed to become a “veto” of a critical story.
“Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” she wrote. “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.”
