CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss defended her decision to pull a segment that had been scheduled for Sunday’s 60 Minutes, telling staff at the network during the morning editorial call Monday that the story “did not advance the ball” and that the show needed to “get the principals on the record and on camera.”
“I want to say something about trust: our trust for each other and our trust with the public,” Weiss said on the call. “The only newsroom I’m interested in running is one in which we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest editorial matters with respect, and, crucially, where we assume the best intent of our colleagues. Anything else is absolutely unacceptable.
“I held a 60 Minutes story because it was not ready,” she continued. “While the story presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, it did not advance the ball—the Times and other outlets have previously done similar work. The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment at this prison. To run a story on this subject two months later, we need to do more. And this is 60 Minutes. We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera. Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else. That’s my north star and I hope it’s yours, too.”
60 Minutes had been slated to run the segment, which featured Sharyn Alfonsi as the correspondent and Oriana Zill de Granados as the producer speaking to Venezuelans who had been deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.
Alfonsi sent an email to her fellow correspondents Sunday blasting the decision.
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct,” Alfonsi wrote. “In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
60 Minutes, of course, is the most-watched news program in all of television, and the stories it presents carry meaningful weight. While the show routinely features newsmaking interviews and groundbreaking investigations, it is also known to have segments that build off the reporting done elsewhere like at The New York Times, in many cases introducing its audiences to the subject through its vast TV reach.
The show has been at the center of a firestorm before, one that was dramatized in Michael Mann’s 1999 thriller The Insider. A tobacco executive agreed to be interviewed as part of a 60 Minutes expose into the industry led by Mike Wallace. CBS killed the story citing legal concerns, as well as a pending sale of the network.
Alfonsi referenced the moment in her note to colleagues.
“CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast,” Alfonsi wrote. “It took years to recover from that ‘low point.’ By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.”