Bari Weiss explained her decision to hold a “60 Minutes” segment earlier this week in an email to CBS News staff Wednesday, saying she is working to win back the trust of American viewers.
“Right now, the majority of Americans say they do not trust the press. It isn’t because they’re crazy,” she began. “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.”
The new CBS News editor in chief continued: “In our upside-down moment, this may seem radical. Such editorial decisions can cause a firestorm, particularly on a slow news week. And the standards for fairness we are holding ourselves to, particularly on contentious subjects, will surely feel controversial to those used to doing things one way. But to fulfill our mission, it’s necessary.”
The postponed segment was set to cover the Trump administration’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison and had been heavily promoted by CBS before its scheduled Sunday air date.
On Sunday, the correspondent for the segment, Sharyn Alfonsi, wrote to colleagues that Weiss “spiked” the story. While she did not share the explicit reason, she suggested that Weiss was dissatisfied that the Trump administration did not participate in the story.
“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,” she wrote Sunday. “If the standard for airing a story becomes ‘the government must agree to be interviewed,’ then the government effectively gains control over the ‘60 Minutes’ broadcast.”
In a Monday morning meeting, Weiss told colleagues she “held that story because it wasn’t ready,” according to a person who attended the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share nonpublic comments. “We need to be able to make every effort to get the principals on the record and on camera.”
CBS News did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday, but in a previous statement a spokeswoman said, “The 60 Minutes report on ‘Inside CECOT’ will air in a future broadcast.”
Weiss joined CBS News as editor in chief in October after newly formed parent company Paramount Skydance bought her website, the Free Press, for $150 million. Paramount Skydance is run by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison.
Critics have echoed Alfonsi’s concerns. “This is what government censorship looks like,” Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts) wrote in a social media post. “Trump approved the Paramount-Skydance merger. A few months later, CBS’s new editor in chief kills a deeply reported story critical of Trump.”
To get its deal approved by the Trump administration, Paramount Skydance made concessions, including appointing an ombudsman with Republican Party ties to police bias in news and vowed to eliminate diversity initiatives, a focus of the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr.
Weiss’s defenders have blasted the show’s staff as insubordinate and misdirected. “Every one of those producers at ‘60 Minutes’ engaged in this revolt, fire them. Clean house,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said in a video posted on X.
Tanya Simon, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” told staff in a private meeting Monday that she stood by the segment, which was approved by the network’s standards department and lawyers, according to a partial transcript of the meeting obtained by The Washington Post.
“In the end, our editor in chief had a different vision for how the piece should be, and it came late in the process, and we were not in a position to address the notes,” Simon said. “We pushed back, we defended our story, but she wanted changes, and I ultimately had to comply.”
Even though the segment never aired in the United States, it was briefly made available in Canada. In that version, Alfonsi said the Department of Homeland Security had declined an interview request and referred questions to the government of El Salvador, which she said didn’t reply. It also included clips of President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Weiss’ Wednesday email to staff was co-signed by CBS News President Tom Cibrowski, as well as two of Weiss’ recently appointed deputies: Charles Forelle, the managing editor, and Adam Rubenstein, the deputy editor.
“No amount of outrage — whether from activist organizations or the White House — will derail us,” the email concluded. “We are not out to score points with one side of the political spectrum or to win followers on social media. We are out to inform the American public and to get the story right. Restoring the integrity of the news is a difficult task. We can’t think of a more important one. Merry Christmas — and thank you, especially, to everyone who is working over this holiday.”
Liam Scott contributed to this report.
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