Democracies are built, and often lost, on the ability of a free press to question, challenge and hold accountable governments in power. According to multiple reports, CBS News‘ newly minted editor in chief, Bari Weiss, intervened to shelve a deeply researched and fact-checked story on the Trump regime’s use of notorious prison CECOT. An “editor’s note” posted to social media claimed the segment would “air in a future broadcast.”
Journalists with 60 Minutes are threatening to quit as a result, according to Daily Beast reporter Will Neal and CNN’s Brian Stelter.
Staff at 60 Minutes are threatening to quit after the network’s MAGA-[friendly] chief allegedly shelved a chilling segment on the Trump administration’s nationwide deportation drive. ‘Inside [60 Minutes], where journalistic independence is sacrosanct, ‘people are threatening to quit over this,’ CNN’s chief media analyst Brian Stelter posted late Sunday night of the mounting firestorm.
The decision to yank 60 Minutes’ CECOT piece came late yesterday, right before air time, with Weiss’ stated justification being that Steve Miller needed to be interviewed to achieve “balance.”
Bari Weiss, the network’s new editor-in-chief, allegedly made the decision just three hours before the show was due to air because it ‘needed additional reporting,’ and suggested the program would benefit from an interview with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Since Weiss was named the network’s editorial chief CBS News has taken a sharp turn to the right—as a result of David Ellison’s Skydance acquiring CBS‘ parent company Paramount Global.
The notorious concentration-camp CECOT has been the subject of pointed controversy and illegal maneuvers since the second regime began. In March, Trump defied a court order and rushed hundreds of accused gang members to that site. That action came after Trump signed a February agreement with Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, to deport detainees there.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
In my Bluesky thread covering the slow-motion trainwreck known as Skydance’s takeover of Paramount, I made the point in April that the resignation of 60 Minutes’ longtime producer, Bill Owens, should be seen as a collapse of, and attack on, democracy. That assertion back in April turned out correct.
Dating back to the Pete Thiel-funded destruction of gossip-site Gawker (a smattering of instances prior as well), right-wing billionaires have made it their raison d’être to either obliterate publications that are mean to them or simply seize operations (like the Ellisons have with CBS) so that coverage bends toward their preferred “causes.”
During Donald’s first regime, CBS News showed some high-profile hints it would “tilt at windmills” by affirmatively hiring Reince Priebus, Mick Mulvaney and others. But those examples pale in comparison to Bari Weiss’ open censorship of a vetted segment by America’s preeminent, and longest-running, news magazine.
Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent who reported the story, sent a scathing email to colleagues (linked below in Anna Bower’s post) that included this banger line: “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.”
Last point: Alfonsi goes on to say “these men (the sources) risked their lives to speak with us” when they were reporting the story. Isn’t it fascinating, therefore, that Bari Weiss is heading up the same sort of back-stabbing operation that Donald does from the (Kremlin-controlled) White House. These are chilling similarities for a news desk to hold with a fascist government.
We should keep eyes out in the coming days to see if Alfonsi resigns from CBS News in protest. Based on the fury in her email, I’d say her days there are numbered.
