A 60 Minutes correspondent is up in arms after CBS management delayed a story decrying the deportation of illegal aliens from the United States to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, accusing CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss of caving to political pressure and betraying sacred journalistic principles. The correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, was behind an embarrassing 2021 flub at 60 Minutes in which she falsely reported that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) gave preferential treatment to a campaign donor to distribute coronavirus vaccines.
Alfonsi, in an email to her fellow 60 Minutes correspondents that was leaked on Sunday to numerous news outlets, accused Weiss of pulling her segment, "Inside CECOT," to appease the Trump administration. According to Alfonsi, the story cleared CBS News's famously thorough review process and was ready to air, but Weiss spiked the story at the last minute without explanation.
"Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices," she wrote.
For her story, Alfonsi interviewed Venezuelan illegal immigrants who had been deported from the United States to the notorious Salvadoran prison and later released. In a trailer for the segment, which aired on CBS the weekend before the story was abruptly pulled, the men described hellish conditions inside the prison while Alfonsi listened sympathetically.
In her leaked email to her colleagues, Alfonsi accused CBS News and Weiss of engaging in "corporate censorship" and of "betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism." Reporters at CBS News are threatening to quit over the Weiss decision, CNN's Brian Stelter reported (it's unlikely that anyone will actually quit due to the fast-shrinking job market for television reporters).
Weiss, who was appointed CBS News editor in chief in October, said in a statement Monday that the story "did not advance the ball" on what has already been reported about CECOT. "We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera," she said.
There's precedent warranting additional legwork on Alfonsi's segments. Alfonsi was the lead correspondent on a debunked story in 2021 that DeSantis gave preferential treatment to the supermarket chain Publix to distribute coronavirus vaccines because the company donated $100,000 to DeSantis's campaign.
"How is that not pay-to-play?" Alfonsi asked DeSantis when she confronted him after one of the governor's press conferences.
Alfonsi's producer for that story, Oriana Zill de Granados, also produced the "Inside CECOT" report.
Several Florida officials, including Democrats, blasted the 60 Minutes report, saying that DeSantis's office was not involved in awarding contracts to Publix.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D., Fla.), who oversaw Florida's emergency management division in 2021 and is known for tangling with the GOP, said that the division recommended Publix for the contract because other pharmacies were not equipped to distribute vaccines.
"No one from the Governor's office suggested Publix. It's just absolute malarkey," he said.
Then-Palm Beach County mayor Dave Kerner (D.) called the story "intentionally false." Publix said the story was "absolutely false and offensive." And DeSantis said the story provides an example of "why nobody trusts corporate media."
"They are a disaster in what they are doing," the governor said. "They knew what they were doing was a lie."
Poynter, a media watchdog group funded largely by liberal charities, called the report a "sloppy moment" that "misses the mark." The Publix donations to DeSantis's campaign were "neither illegal nor unusual," according to Poynter.
CBS did not correct or apologize for the segment, only issuing a narrow statement defending why it edited down DeSantis's comments to Alfonsi and pointing out that DeSantis declined 60 Minutes' offer for a full sit-down interview.
Alfonsi did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether that segment was also "screened five times" and "cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices."
Republicans frequently decline 60 Minutes interviews, saying the program's liberal bias and producers' edits of interviews are unfair.
"Given their influence in our media society. their liberal, anti-Trump bias has been as insidious as any other organization," nonpartisan political journalist Mark Halperin said of 60 Minutes on his podcast earlier this year. "And yet 60 Minutes, and CBS, postures like they're the gold standard."
Axios White House reporter Marc Caputo, who was Halperin's guest on the podcast, said that "60 Minutes' political interviews have been pro-Democrat since at least the Obama era."
Regarding Alfonsi's DeSantis segment, 60 Minutes also faced accusations of editing down the governor's detailed response to Alfonsi, in which he said the state partnered also with Walgreens and CVS to administer vaccines, to create the impression that he was being disingenuous.
After buying CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, the billionaire Ellison family brought Weiss to CBS News to bring some editorial balance to the network, which has been persistently criticized for liberal bias for the last four decades.
Weiss's explanation for holding the CECOT piece is unlikely to quiet her critics. She has been a lightning rod in the media industry dating back to her stint on the New York Times editorial board. Weiss resigned from the board in 2020, accusing the "paper of record" of allowing far-left voices on social media and inside the newsroom to shape its news and editorial coverage.
Weiss launched The Free Press, where she has featured journalists like former NPR editor Uri Berliner to document the rampant liberal bias at the public news outlet.
Alfonsi never weighed in on her faulty DeSantis report beyond the narrow statement issued by CBS. 60 Minutes rarely apologizes for or corrects its reporting unless confronted with widespread public opprobrium and overwhelming evidence that its reporting was false. It is unclear if the DeSantis story went through the same thorough vetting process as the CECOT piece. Alfonsi did not respond to a request for comment.
