CBS News is getting ready to put a delayed and much-scrutinized “60 Minutes” segment out into public view, but it remains unclear that doing so will tamp down the controversy that has erupted around it.
The previously-impeded segment is called “Inside CECOT” and is a piece by “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi built around on-screen accounts of Venezuelan men deported by the U.S. to a harsh prison in El Salvador. It had been shelved even though CBS News had already promoted it as part of the lineup of the newsmagazine’s December 21 telecast. As disclosed by an email sent to colleagues at the time by Alfonsi, the decision was made by top CBS News executive Bari Weiss, who had at the time insisted that Trump officials appear in the report to comment on camera, even though Alfonsi’s team had made good-faith efforts to secure response ahead of filing the report for legal review. “The public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship,” Alfonsi said in her memo.
“CBS News leadership has always been committed to airing the ’60 Minutes’ CECOT piece as soon as it was ready,” the news division said in a statement Sunday. “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.”
When the report airs, it will not contain any direct interviews or exchanges on screen with Trump officials, according to three people familiar with the matter. Alfonsi had been dispatched to Washington, D.C. last week to try and secure an on-screen interview, two of these people said, but an interview that Weiss had hoped for did not take place. The story will, however, contain statements from several different parts of the U.S. government, something Weiss felt was lacking in the original piece and an element she wants in much of CBS’ political reportage, according to an executive familiar with the matter.
And the piece will have three minutes of new reporting, this executive said, as well some minor changes from what had been expected to run in December. A statistic about the number of people who are deported from the U.S. because they are criminal has been added, and the story will note that one of the interviewees has two tattoos that are known marks of gangs or Nazis — elements the administration uses to identify migrants for potential deportation.
Alfonsi is not expected to address any of the controversies around the piece in her introduction to the segment Sunday night.
Careful viewers will be able to compare the new version with the original that was ready to air in December. After Weiss ordered the story held, a copy of it that had already been distributed to a Canadian media partner leaked and were made available via YouTube and other social outlets.
Airing of the segment may not mend any frayed relationships between management and staff. Alfonsi’s current contract with CBS News is slated to lapse sometime this summer, according to a person familiar with the matter. If her deal is not renewed, some journalists could interpret it as the result of retaliation for her willingness to speak up.
Alfonsi, who worked at ABC News before joining “60 Minutes,” has earned a reputation as a dependable reporter who typically avoids the controversies that can engulf TV-news personnel. At “60 Minutes,” Alfonsi told Variety in 2020, “you are dropped by a helicopter on top of a mountain and you have to kind of find your way down. There are some paths and moguls and jumps. You are sort of kicking your way out. I’ve been pushed out of the helicopter. I’m on the mountain. I feel like I’m just taking speed.”
Weiss has defended her decision to hold the piece. But she acknowledges her timing was inopportune, according to a person familiar with her thinking, and she recognizes that she inserted herself into “60 Minutes’” editing and vetting process at a late stage.
“Right now, the majority of Americans say they do not trust the press. It isn’t because they’re crazy,” Weiss said in a memo issued around Christmas. “To win back their trust, we have to work hard. Sometimes that means doing more legwork. Sometimes it means telling unexpected stories. Sometimes it means training our attention on topics that have been overlooked or misconstrued. And sometimes it means holding a piece about an important subject to make sure it is comprehensive and fair.”
Weiss has attracted more attention to CBS News since her arrival last year than perhaps any other personality except Katie Couric, who jumped from NBC to anchor of “CBS Evening News” in 2006. Weiss, a conservative opinion provocateur who founded the right-leaning site The Free Press, joined Paramount Skydance last year after the company purchased her outlet for $150 million. Since that time, she has overhauled “CBS Evening News” and sought to launch a new series of town halls and debates. But her lack of experience with managing a large TV asset has been on regular display, giving staffers and critics plenty of reason for skepticism.
“60 Minutes,” which features profiles and features along with investigative pieces, has seen its credibility undermined over the past two years as corporate managers failed to defend it from what was largely considered to be a nuisance suit from President Trump over the editing of a 2024 interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Paramount, eager to clear a path to a sale of the company from the Redstone family, former controlling shareholders, to the Ellisons, who now operate Paramount Skydance, agreed to pay a $16 million settlement to Trump.
As a result, two senior CBS News executives — Bill Owens, the executive producer of “60 Minutes” and Wendy McMahon, the former CEO of CBS News, local stations and syndication — suggested in remarks that they could no longer push back against corporate mandates they felt would weaken the newsroom. Three people familiar with the show say there have been calls for “60 Minutes” to cut back on the number of hard-news or investigative segments it runs, and pay more attention to features and celebrity profiles, which corporate managers believe will generate more attention online. On Sunday, however, the telecast will contain two segments tied to politics: one is the CECOT report, and the other is a look at what has happened in Minneapolis as ICE authorities crack down on the populace.
The newsmagazine has long worked apart from the rest of CBS News, and in recent years there have been some efforts to bring the show to heel. Whether the correspondents who work there will continue to bristle at similar maneuvers remains to be seen, but there is a hope internally that the show can get back to producing its journalism instead of being forced to defend it under circumstances Mike Wallace and Morley Safer might have considered surreal.