Yesterday I wrote about the segment of CBS’s “60 Minutes” show that was removed from the schedule by news editor-in-chief Bari Weiss shortly before it was to air. It was about American detainees, accused of immigration violations, who were sent to a notorious and horrible prison in El Salvador, CECOT. Here’s an excerpt of the NYT story on the incident:
In a move that drew harsh criticism from its own correspondent, CBS News abruptly removed a segment from Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador.
CBS announced the change three hours before the broadcast, a highly unusual last-minute switch. The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment. CBS News said in a statement that the segment would air at a later date and “needed additional reporting.”
But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, rejected that criticism in a private note to CBS colleagues on Sunday, in which she accused CBS News of pulling the segment for “political” reasons.
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “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.”
Ms. Weiss said in a statement late Sunday: “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready.”
It seems to me, and even more now that I’ve seen the show, that the reasons for taking it off there air were, as Alfonsi claims, not really editorial but political. Why would Weiss do that, though? Perhaps because, she doesn’t want to incur the wrath of Trump, who doesn’t want the information in this show to be aired. There are several reasons why Weiss might have wanted administration pushback. First, the Trump administration approved the acquisition of Paramount (which owns CBS) to Skydance, and, after this, we can’t have CBS criticizing the administration. Second, this year Trump sued CBS for airing an edited interview with Kamala Harris; Trump won and got $16 million. So there’s every reason to think that Trump would be really upset if CBS’s 60 Minutes criticized his administration, which is the show does implicitly. You can see that below.
Nevertheless, a fair number of readers here defended Weiss, arguing that Alfonsi did NOT ask enough U.S. administration officials to criticize the show. 60 Minutes did not, for instance, consult Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and “the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.” Weiss helpfully suggested that they ask Miller. But, as you’ll see in the 14-minute segment, which was aired in Canada, the show did ask for comment from the White House. The response? Here’s what Alfonsi says in the piece:
“The Department of Homeland Sexurity declined our request for an interview, and referred all questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The government there did not respond to our request.”
Now isn’t that enough asking? After all, the show asked the proper government agency to respond. That agency, DHS, referred CBS to the El Salvadorian government, which didn’t respond. That is two asks, and to the right people. Isn’t that enough? How many bits of investigative journalism have you read that end with something like, “We asked X for a comment on this story, but we have gotten no response.” Do you beef about them not having asked more people, up until they get a critical response? No, I doubt it. And the editors of this story were satisfied with that, as am I. Weiss’s insistence that CBS keep asking people until someone in the Trump administration did respond critically constitutes micromanagement, and I fail to understand that this is justifiable grounds for pulling the story.
Before I make a few more comments, why don’t you watch the show? The links to the Canadian broadcast, apparently identical to the American one, are below, as “The Streisand Effect” has spread them all over the Inbternet.
First, from The Breakdown. I’ve put the links to that site here, and you can watch the Canadian version by clicking on the headline below. The quality isn’t great, but you can certainly see the show. It’s about the right length for a “60 Minutes” segment, being 14 minutes long (most are between 12 and 15 minutes). The site’s comment:
The segment apparently aired on Canada’s Global TV app and was shared by this Bluesky user @jasonparis.bsky.social. You can watch the entire segment below!
On The Reset, Yashar Ali also has a link to the full video; click below to access it (h/t reader Dave). THIS IS THE BEST AVAILABLE VERSION. That site says this:
The decision to pull the story was made by CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss, and it triggered a firestorm within the network and, subsequently, in the public. Here’s some info on the controversy and when I update this story shortly, I will link to additional reporting, but I wanted to publish this video immediately as a version of it was taken down on YouTube.
It turns out that the network delivered the segment to Canada’s Global TV app (it has since been pulled).
As I understand it, this is only part of the overall story, but this 13-minute-long video— sent to me by a source —is what exists. [JAC: I have no idea what they mean by “part of the overall story”. If something more was there, I’d like to know what it is.]
(An earlier version of this story had a video that was filmed with someone’s smart phone, this is a broadcast quality version),
Click the screenshot below to access the video, scrolling down a bit after you get to the site:
I also found a good version of the entire show, including the controversial segment, at an archived site.
There’s also a YouTube version embedded within a MayDay discussion. The CBS segment goes from 4:49 to 15:20, so it’s shorter than other versions. I have not checked to see what, if anything, is missing from the video below compared to those above.
Finally, this Bluesky post begins a series of five shorter posts that contain the segment. Again, I haven’t checked this one to see if it’s “complete,” at least compared to the first two above:
The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5
So, what have we here? The piece is mostly about Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration from the U.S. to a horrible prison (CECOT) in El Salvador. The purported reason was that they were terrorists or violent criminals. Most of the video is taken up with shots of the prison and interviews with Venezuelans who had been deported to CECOT and later sent on to Venezuela (and presumably freed there) in a prisoner swap.
CECOT is hell on earth, far worse than the Supermax prisons in the U.S. The lights are on 24 hours per day, cells are overcrowded, there is no outside light or fresh water (prisoners say they drank water from toilets), the food is dire, and the El Salvadoran prisoners (presumably gang members) in CECOT will never get out again. They are treated like trash, and manhandled and beaten regularly. It is surely hell on earth.
Note that the people interviewed by 60 Minutes are not El Salvadoran gang members, but some of 252 Venezuelans who entered the U.S. illegally and were deemed suitable for sending to CECOT
CECOT, or Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, was constructed three years ago. Wikipedia adds this:
With a capacity for 40,000 inmates, CECOT is the largest prison in Latin America and one of the largest in the world by prisoner capacity. In March 2025, the Salvadoran government accepted over 200 deportees that the second Donald Trump administration alleged were Venezuelan and Salvadoran gang members and incarcerated them in CECOT. Among them was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case received widespread media attention in the United States. The Venezuelans incarcerated in CECOT were repatriated to Venezuela in July 2025 following a prisoner swap involving El Salvador, the United States, and Venezuela.
According to the 60 Minutes report, the U.S. paid El Salvador $4.7 million to house Venezuelan deportees, characterizing them as “heninous monsters: rapists, kidnappers, sexual assaulter, and predators”, and “the worst of the worst.” Were they? Human Rights Watch, quoted in the show, concluded that nearly of the Venezuelans sent to CCECOT “had no criminal history” save illegal entry into the U.S. They add that only 8 prisoners, or 3.1%, “were convicted of a violent or potentially violent offense.”
But surely none of these prisoners deserve this kind of punishment, even if they were murderers! Yet the vast majority were guilty of no crimes save illegal entry. ICE’s own records were consulted and reviewed by 60 Minutes. Even having a tattoo was apparently sufficient reason to warrant a Venezuelan’s deportation to CECOT, but tattooes aren’t reliable ways to identify Venezuelan gang members. And don’t even ask about “the island”: a punishment cell in which prisoners were beaten every half hour. You may have seen the “commercial” with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (the department asked for comments!), showing a group of heavily tattooes prisoners, actually shows El Salvadoran prisoners accused of being gang members, not Venezuelans deported by the U.S. Here’s an AP video of Noem’s visit. The prisoners shown are El Salvadoran, most with tattooes indicating gang membership. But remember, even these baddies to not deserve to be in such hell.
The show then interviews a group of students at U. C. Berkeley’s Human Rights Center. These students investigated the prison and verified that the deportees’ stories were true and that the conditions for all prisoners “violated UN minimum standards for prisoners,” constituting violations of human rights.
Yes, there are two sides for every story, but I can’t see another side of this one: a side that vindicates what the Trump Administration did. But have a look for yourself (I recommend the second link, the one from Reset). What is the other side?
It seems to me that Weiss was micromanaging this video on ideological grounds, presumably to soften its implicit attack on the Trump administration. Taking this segment off the air because they didn’t ask the Administration for enough comments appears to me as dissimulation.
Judge for yourself.
I’ll wait for the revsed piece and watch them both then.
Very open minded of you.
Jerry, thanks for posting the videos of the episode and your analysis. Yes, CEDOT is a terrible place — no one would argue otherwise. The human rights groups should be doing something about it (are they? I do not know). The US is not responsible for CEDOT, as it is El Salvadorian prison, but if the US sends innocent people there — it is a moral problem.
However, similarly to DrBrydon, I am also reserving my final judgment about this case until I see the revised piece and compare the two. I agree with the concerns about possible politically motivated censorship, as expressed by Jerry and by many readers in the comments, but on the other hand — we know how much of a distortion can be created by omission and selective reporting of the facts. As this post reminds us, CBS previously went as far as doctoring the interview with Harris — so the concerns about the integrity of the piece put up by a biased reporter from an organization with previous track record of falsifying the news, are also valid.
“And so the dialectic continues.”
-Delgado and Stefancic
Critical Race Theory – A Primer
2017
Too bad Weiss has become just another Trump enforcer.
But Trump is being stupid. Broadcast TV is in steep decline. The CECOT story was reported by the NYT months ago.
Trump is living in the past, when broadcast was huge. Hence his fixation on it now.
Another example of Trump living in the past–introducing the Trump-class battleship!
Graeme Wood has a piece in the Atlantic called “What Bari Weiss got right” that partially defends Weiss. There’s also an article by Jonathon Chait, “Bari Weiss’s Audience of One” implying that she is part of Trump’s plan to corrupt the media.
Thanks for that Mr. Hutchinson – I’m a big Graeme Wood fan — his work about Islamism/ISIS is top notch.
ha. I used to subscribe to The Atlantic but let it lapse… too many unserious Kendis and other woke nonsense. (plus they turned down an article I once sent them on a bet! -hehhe)
Mr. Chiat is a bright guy also – I’ll check them out.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Another reason Paramount would have wanted the segment pulled, is that it is trying to buy Warner Brothers, which owns CNN, and might need Trump’s support. Trump has stated he has concerns about Netflix acquiring WB. Ms. Weiss would love to get her hands on CNN.
I just watched the piece. I think it’s quite good, certainly provocative and interesting. My position is that the piece should have been aired as planned. Weiss’s reason for pulling it may have been political—it’s hard to tell—but I don’t think that being “political” is all that important a criterion in that the piece itself is political. The choice of topic (detainees in an El Salvadoran prison) and the context (a controversial Trump administration tactic) are themselves political. One might say that most 60 Minutes documentaries are political in some sense.
Why should Bari Weiss have left the piece as is? Because it was almost certainly developed before she joined CBS, and it was produced by standards that CBS already had in place, by a seasoned team that is (probably) used to having considerable autonomy. Weiss’s meddling was a shock to the team. Tons of work was wasted; Weiss seemingly came in out of nowhere and heavy-handedly used her authority. She p*issed everyone off, and rightly so.
What Weiss should have done is allow the piece to air as planned. If she wants to impose her will, she should do so at the start of production of a story, not at the end. She made a bad mistake here, wrecking morale, sabotaged her future with the team and possibly with the network.
Ironically, the piece has drawn so much more attention than had it been allowed to run as scheduled. Maybe, that was Weiss’ plan all along. Protect herself and CBS, but the segment gets loads of attention. (I doubt it).
The “Streisand effect.”
I think she just screwed up royally by messing with an already-completed and vetted project. The team is obviously p*ssed off and, since a new leader always creates worry, the team is angry and fearful, and is responding by calling Weiss’s motivations and judgment into question. We don’t need exotic theories to explain this backlash. (I know you’re not suggesting one.)
Oh, and why are all the media outlets covering this story? Because they can relate to a new boss taking over in a heavy handed way. They don’t like it.
Excellent summation PCC. The only possible defense I can think of is the CEO demanding that Weiss spike the story or Trump will destroy CBS in litigation. One story vs the future of a cornerstone US news outlet? That’s a lot of pressure. But surely Bari’s first question before taking this editor job was ‘I have journalistic independence, even from the Trump Administration, right?’ She was the person who left the NYT due to biased reporting to found The “Free Press,” only to then decide to compromise her own professional journalistic integrity (worse, of the talented reporters in her newsroom and reputationally, CBS) by self-censoring a completely legitimate and thorough critique of the administration that is protected by the Constitution for fear of blowback in her new job?
No way. That level of poor judgment and compromising a foundational ethical standard of journalism and duty to the public are immediately disqualifying. I don’t know if I believe her excuses – they sound like dissembling.
Ask yourself – how can you trust CBS News now? Democracy dies in dark room deals.
Agreed about the conditions. Apart from protection of the society (from prisoners), a prison sentence is about incarceration – “You can’t go anywhere…”.
Further tormenting of the prisoners, beyond that, is a terrible thing and counter-productive. Vengeance is another less palatable aspect of incarceration but we’d be fools to not acknowledge it. And given our evolutionary instincts it is a need that must be met. But not too much. I did criminal defense for the poor in NYC so I’m familiar with many of the issues here – but certainly no expert. How does a compassionate open society deal with its most obnoxious or dangerous members?
I’m surprised this CBS story/60 Minutes story has been wildly interesting to MANY people, not least of all our host here. I wasn’t sure 60 Minutes was even a thing now. I mean.. we all grew up with it, but there are a lot of things we grew up with which are now not fit for purpose. I’ll certainly watch the show.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Goodness Ms. Noem is an unusually shaped human. That aside.. apparently in El Salvador criminals openly fly their flag of criminality with tattoos. Convenient for the cops arresting them and what evolutionists call a “fast life strategy”. Even face and neck tattoos – that’s a pretty bold statement there, fella.
Consider other cultures (Japan, Korea) where tatts are deeply dishonorable. Even with tourism many spas and bath places/onsen reject tattooed customers (b/c of Yakuza shame) which collides with the new tourism there and westerners.
D.A.
NYC