“60 Minutes” correspondent Cecilia Vega’s contract with CBS News has not been renewed, the network announced on May 28.
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Former Chronicle and ABC7 News journalist Cecilia Vega is out at “60 Minutes,” part of a shakeup of the legendary news magazine by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss.
The 49-year-old Vega, who was born in San Francisco and raised in the East Bay, became the first Latina correspondent for the oldest and most-watched newsmagazine on television when she was hired in January 2023.
Also ousted were senior executive producers Tanya Simon and Draggan Mihailovich, along with correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi.
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Meanwhile, Weiss named Nick Bilton, a former New York Times and Vanity Fair tech writer who is a bestselling author and documentary filmmaker, as the fifth executive producer in the program’s 58-year history. CBS announced Bilton’s hiring in a news release on Thursday, May 28.
“I very much fear what comes next for and the future of the legendary broadcast,” Vega said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories. Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions. Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven. It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”
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Vega added that she “held the line” and “fought to keep questionable editorial suggestions away from the facts.”
“I am far from the only 60 Minutes correspondent who has asked herself, ‘What is my personal red line? How much can I push back before I pay the price?’ … Today I lost an amazing job. But I still have my integrity.”
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Earlier this month, Anderson Cooper announced his resignation after a two-decade run as a correspondent at “60 Minutes,” signing off on the show’s May 17 edition. He remains chief anchor at CNN.
“60 Minutes,” one of the most respected newsmagazines since its debut in 1968, has been in a state of uncertainty since October 2024. That’s when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump sued the program for $20 billion over its editing of an interview with his opponent, Kamala Harris.
The network’s decision to settle the suit for $16 million stunned “60 Minutes” correspondents and staffers, as many legal experts considered the suit to be without merit. The settlement reportedly was to appease the Trump administration, which had the power to approve Skydance Media’s acquisition of Paramount, which owns CBS.
After the merger was approved, Skydance Media owner David Ellison installed Weiss, the founder of the conservative-leaning media company the Free Press, as editor in chief of CBS News.
Reported tension between Weiss and “60 Minutes” executives and correspondents became public in December when Weiss pulled a piece by Alfonsi that reported on the harsh conditions of an El Salvador prison where hundreds of Venezuelan migrants were deported by the Trump administration.
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Weiss claimed the report, titled “Inside CECOT,” needed more reporting. Alfonsi disagreed, and the piece eventually aired on the newsmagazine.
When news of Alfonsi’s firing was rumored this week — technically, her contract expired and was not renewed — Alfonsi publicly blasted Weiss.
“In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like ‘modernization’ and ‘restructuring’ to explain away my departure,” Alfonsi said in a statement released Wednesday, May 27. “Don’t be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”
The granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, Vega graduated from Salesian High School in Richmond and studied at American University in Washington, D.C., and at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism school.
She worked for the San Bernardino Sun and Santa Rosa Press Democrat before becoming the San Francisco City Hall reporter for the Chronicle when Gavin Newsom was mayor.
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Vega made the transition to television journalism in 2007, joining ABC7 News as a correspondent. She was hired by ABC News in 2010.
She became the first Latina to be named senior White House correspondent for an English-language network in 2017 and chief White House correspondent in 2021.
“60 Minutes,” which just wrapped up its 58th season, is among the most profitable and most-watched non-NFL football shows on network television, currently bringing in an average of 9.1 million viewers a week.