On Sunday, CBS abruptly pulled a 60 Minutes segment featuring the accounts of Venezuelan men who the Trump administration deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador — even though it had apparently been fully fact-checked and legally vetted. Here's what happened, and why the decision has stirred up a media storm.
Bari Weiss weighs in
CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss reportedly raised several issues after the network publicized the segment on Friday afternoon. These included the lack of participation from high-ranking Trump administration officials, and, per the New York Times, the use of the term "migrants" to describe the deportees.
The scheduling change was announced just three hours before the program was due to air. CBS said in a statement that the segment “needed additional reporting,” and would be broadcast at a later date.
Sharyn Alfonsi claps back
In a memo to colleagues, 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who reported the segment, said that her team had requested comment from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, but had received no response.
“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."
"Pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
She stressed that the sources in the segment “risked their lives to speak with us,” adding: “We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories.”
Weiss responds to the New York Times
Late Sunday night, Weiss addressed the New York Times in a statement, saying: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason—that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices—happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”
Why 60 Minutes has become a bone of contention
The decision to pull the segment comes against a tense backdrop for CBS and the Trump administration. David Ellison made Weiss editor-in-chief this fall after his newly formed company, Paramount Skydance, bought her website, The Free Press, for $150 million. Ellison, whose father, Larry, is friends with President Trump, acquired Paramount with Trump's approval earlier this year after the network paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over the editing of his interview on 60 Minutes.
Weiss has since overseen restructuring and layoffs at the company, and launched a new town hall series featuring an interview with Charlie Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk. Earlier this month, Ellison launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN's parent company, in an attempt to outmaneuver an offer from Netflix. President Trump has vowed to be involved in the regulatory decision that will likely determine the bid's outcome — but has recently indicated some dissatisfaction with Ellison's leadership.
“For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover,’ than they have ever treated me before,” he wrote on Truth Social last week.
