CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday aired correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s report on U.S. deportees held in El Salvador’s CECOT prison — a story that CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss had pulled from the Dec. 21 episode, setting off an internal dispute that Alfonsi described to colleagues as “not an editorial decision” but “a political one.”
Weiss, who founded the Free Press website and had no previous television news experience before her appointment to the top CBS News editorial role, had argued the story did not sufficiently reflect the administration’s viewpoint and did not advance reporting that other news organizations had already published, according to the Associated Press.
The broadcast closes a month-long standoff that exposed tensions between CBS News’ new corporate leadership and its journalism staff, and brought fresh scrutiny of whether the network’s editorial decisions were being shaped by its relationship with the Trump administration.
What aired Sunday
Alfonsi’s CECOT report ran as the second of three segments, with correspondent Cecilia Vega’s report from Minneapolis on ICE enforcement efforts and protests leading the broadcast. Alfonsi made no on-air reference to her dispute with Weiss.
The Jan. 18 broadcast included statements from the White House and Department of Homeland Security that were not part of the original version Weiss had rejected. Some of those statements, which were carried in full on the “60 Minutes” website, were dated prior to Dec. 21.
“Since November, ‘60 Minutes’ has made several attempts to interview key Trump administration officials on camera about our story,” Alfonsi said on air. “They declined our requests.”
In an email sent to colleagues after the December pull, Alfonsi said the administration’s refusal to appear on camera was a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story, according to the AP. She did not immediately return a message from the AP on Sunday.
The body of the story was unchanged from the December version. Its introduction was updated to lead with the Jan. 3 U.S. raid that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is currently held in U.S. custody. Alfonsi also changed the end to include the administration’s comment and its explanation for not providing detailed records on the migrants sent to El Salvador.
The administration provided photos of tattoos worn by two migrants Alfonsi had interviewed, including a swastika that one interviewee said he had obtained as a teenager not knowing what it meant.
CBS’s position; how the story reached viewers early
CBS News said in a statement that its “leadership has always been committed to airing the ‘60 Minutes’ CECOT piece as soon as it was ready. Tonight, viewers get to see it, along with other important stories, all of which speak to CBS News’ independence and the power of our storytelling.”
Alfonsi’s original story had mistakenly become available online after CBS fed a version of the newsmagazine to Global Television, a network that airs “60 Minutes” in Canada, which posted it on its website before the last-minute switch removing the piece. That gave viewers the opportunity to compare the original with what “60 Minutes” eventually broadcast.
CBS and the Trump administration
Critics had argued that the appointment of Weiss — by the network’s new corporate leadership, and without previous television news experience — represented an effort to curry favor with the Trump administration. Since her appointment, Trump administration officials have been more visible on CBS News, in interviews that she sometimes helped arrange. President Trump was interviewed by Norah O’Donnell on “60 Minutes” on Nov. 2.
The New York Times reported Saturday that after Trump was interviewed last week by new CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the network that “we’ll sue your ass off” if the exchange wasn’t aired in full. All 13 minutes of that interview aired Tuesday, an unusual step for an evening newscast. CBS told the Times that it had decided to run the Dokoupil interview unedited at the time it was booked.
Trump has previously objected to how his interviews have been edited, including releasing an unedited transcript of an interview conducted by “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl in 2020.