By Brian Stelter, NCS
(NCS) — “60 Minutes” simply suffered a extreme blow to its credibility. Now one among its personal correspondents fears the program is being “dismantled,” and a few staff are threatening to give up.
The set off: CBS News instantly shelved a phase that includes the accounts of Venezuelan males deported by the Trump administration to a infamous maximum-security jail in El Salvador.
The correspondent who reported the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, stated in an inner memo that “the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.”
According to Alfonsi and two CBS sources who spoke with NCS on situation of anonymity, the story had been absolutely fact-checked and legally vetted by the time the community publicized it on Friday afternoon.
But CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss weighed in with questions on Saturday morning, the two sources stated. Alfonsi stated Weiss “spiked the story.”
One of the primary points 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 didn’t interact, which involved Weiss. At one level, Weiss steered that the program strive to interview White House deputy chief of employees Stephen Miller, and offered Miller’s quantity, one among the CBS sources stated.
Alfonsi argued in her memo that the administration’s strategic silence can’t be allowed to develop into a “veto” of a crucial 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.”
Weiss responded in an announcement to The New York Times late Sunday night time, “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.”
Earlier in the day, CBS News stated of the resolution to maintain the phase, “We determined it needed additional reporting.”
But Alfonsi disputed that in her memo. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” she wrote. “It is factually correct. 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” segments are generally screened a number of instances earlier than air, however 5 screenings is an unusually excessive quantity, the CBS sources stated.
It is unclear when Weiss first seen the story. But she has not too long ago develop into personally concerned in “60 Minutes” tales about politics, the CBS sources advised NCS.
In one other latest flip of occasions, President Trump has been blasting the newsmagazine on Truth Social, sounding upset in CBS’s new homeowners.
In late 2024, Trump sued CBS and its mum or dad firm, Paramount, then below totally different possession, alleging “60 Minutes” deceptively edited a Kamala Harris interview to profit her marketing campaign.
That lawsuit, which authorized specialists broadly seen to be legally doubtful, loomed massive over Paramount’s try to merge with Skydance Media, a manufacturing firm led by David Ellison and supported by Ellison’s father, Larry, the Oracle billionaire.
The lawsuit grew to become a flashpoint inside CBS News, the place journalists frightened that each the outdated and new company leaders sought to mollify Trump at the value of the newsroom’s credibility.
Eventually, the outgoing Paramount management workforce agreed to settle Trump’s lawsuit, and the incoming management workforce agreed to a number of concessions that glad the Trump-aligned FCC.
David Ellison took management of Paramount, lavished reward on “60 Minutes,” and stated he wished to strengthen CBS News. Then he acquired Weiss’s startup, The Free Press, for $150 million, and put in her as editor-in-chief.
Now in control of each operations, Weiss has confronted media business skepticism about her lack of expertise with TV administration and conventional reporting.
At the finish of October, Weiss traveled to Mar-a-Lago when CBS journalist Norah O’Donnell taped a “60 Minutes” sit-down with President Trump.
The president praised Weiss throughout the interview, although not by identify, including, “I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person.”
Earlier that very same month, Trump additionally stated of the Ellisons, “they’re friends of mine. Big — they’re big supporters of mine, and they’ll do the right thing.”
Over the previous two weeks, nevertheless, Trump has lashed out at Ellison, who’s at present waging a politically delicate hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, NCS’s proprietor.
On Dec. 8, he posted a screed in opposition to “60 Minutes” for interviewing Marjorie Taylor Greene, and claimed that since Paramount modified arms, the program “has actually gotten WORSE!” He repeated that opinion on Dec. 16, including, “If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!”
The timing of his most up-to-date criticism, on Friday night time, coincided with the behind-the-scenes drama at “60 Minutes.”
“I love the new owners of CBS,” Trump stated at a rally. “Something happens to them, though. ‘60 Minutes’ has treated me worse under the new ownership than… they just keep treating me, they just keep hitting me, it’s crazy.”
By then, CBS was already selling the upcoming story, titled “INSIDE CECOT.”
Friday afternoon’s press launch stated “correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi speaks with some of the now released deportees, who describe the brutal and torturous conditions they endured inside CECOT.”
Alfonsi stated in her memo, of these interviewees, “These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”
The-NCS-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.