Bari Weiss, two months into her post as CBS News‘ editor-in-chief, was responsible for spiking a “60 Minutes” segment on the “brutal and tortuous conditions” at a prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration has deported alleged illegal immigrants for detention, according to reports.
The CBS News program abruptly announced on Sunday — three hours before airtime — that it was delaying the segment for a future airdate. The report, as previously announced, was to have featured correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi interviewing deportees who the Trump administration has sent to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison in El Salvador.
Weiss, after requesting “numerous changes to the segment,” spiked the report on Saturday, the New York Times reported. Alfonsi, in “a private note to CBS colleagues” Sunday, according to the Times, wrote that, “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. 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.”
Staffers at “60 Minutes” are “threatening to quit over this,” CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter tweeted.
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident came after President Trump two weeks ago complained about what he perceived was unfair treatment by “60 Minutes” — and asserted that since David Ellison and his father, wealthy Trump supporter Larry Ellison, close the deal to acquire Paramount (parent of CBS), “60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”
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