CBS News’ 60 Minutes did a segment on CECOT, the maximum security prison in El Salvador, where the Trump administration is deporting some illegal aliens. It was biased, par for the course for the network. Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss wanted to hold off on the story, which aired in Canada, so please spare us the ‘censorship’ lectures, Democrats. The kerfuffle did accomplish another thing, however. It exposed the rot within the program, something that Weiss plans to overhaul.
No wonder Bari Weiss put the brakes on that joke of a 60 Minutes CECOT propaganda episode.
— Bad Hombre (@Badhombre) December 24, 2025
- The entire piece relies on testimony from a few Venezuelans making outlandish claims of torture without evidence. Viewers are expected to take the word of people with every motive to lie…
Her memo about the story was leaked, and it contained nothing controversial; Weiss merely wanted the team to do a better job of getting quality quotes and responses from Trump officials. But times are different. They didn’t have the automatic greenlight to push an anti-Trump immigration segment, where everyone, including the sound mixer, seemed to be blabbering about CBS News becoming a pro-Trump outlet. That’s not happening. Weiss isn’t even a conservative. So, while this was a little speed bump, massive reconstructive surgery is coming to the unit. Yes, Ms. Weiss, clean house (via Axios):
CBS News' new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is planning to create a masthead for the broadcaster as part of a broader overhaul of standards and procedures, according to a source familiar with her plans.
Why it matters: The masthead is meant to drive a more streamlined hierarchy and set of processes across show and news gathering teams that are intended to prevent disparate editorial procedures and standards.
Zoom out: The changes come in the wake of a controversy that saw her pulling a story about Trump administration deportations of Venezuelan immigrants to an El Salvador prison, according to a source familiar with her plans.
One of the main reasons Weiss cited for pulling the segment was that the "60 Minutes" team didn't include any of the three on-the-record statements from the White House, State Department and Department of Homeland Security that were provided to CBS News journalists.
According to a source familiar with the "60 Minutes" team's correspondence with the administration, journalists reached out to press officials at the White House, State Department, and DHS, all of which provided comment to CBS News ahead of the piece's anticipated run date.
No, not really:
So “60 Minutes” straight up lied. Plus, they could have gone to a White House press briefing or asked Trump after a cabinet meeting or on Air Force One. They chose not to. Totally unethical & irresponsible behavior. @bariweiss was right to hold the piece. https://t.co/xkkPfkwdCg
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 23, 2025
But the reporter who’s been complaining about this, Sharyn Alfonsi, has a history of getting things dead wrong and needs a push to get responses, which this story required. If you don’t remember her, she’s the one who did a hit piece on Ron DeSantis regarding the COVID vaccine and its ties to Publix and their owners, since they supported his gubernatorial campaign. Spurious accusations were lobbed and never corrected, because that’s what 60 Minutes does, make up stuff to help Democrats (via Public):
...the same reporter who did the flawed DeSantis piece, Sharyn Alfonsi, has accused her employer of censoring her story about deportees El Salvador’s prison. “The public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship,” Alfonsi wrote in an email to her colleagues that has been viewed four million times on X.
However, Alfonsi offered no evidence to support her allegation of “corporate censorship,” implying that people to whom Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss reports caused her to delay the piece.
[…]
Alfonsi, in her leaked email, said she tried to get a response from the Trump administration but couldn’t, which was one of the reasons Weiss cited in her email to CBS staff for holding back the piece.
An experienced television news journalist, who has been in the business for three decades, said CBS could have done what it has often done in the past, which is to ask a Trump official at one of the many press availabilities.
“They could have sent a CBS reporter to the White House press briefing,” the person said, or had a reporter ask President Trump directly during one of his frequent press conferences at the White House and on Air Force One. The CBS website shows that it has at least six full-time reporters at the White House.
“The episode shows Sharyn’s poor investigative skills,” the person added. “She should have doorstepped the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security or sent someone to the White House.”
To “doorstop” a person is when a journalist confronts someone, such as a senior government official, often when they are coming or going into their workplace.
“Sharyn could have gone to the briefing herself, or CBS could have gone in and said ‘CBS has finished an investigation. Here are the allegations. How do you respond?’”
Alfonsi falsely claimed in her segment that DeSantis gave an “exclusive” to Publix. Floridians could get the Covid vaccine from many different sources, including county health departments, other major pharmacy chains including CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart, and mass vaccination drive-thru sites with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Three major liberal or left-wing fact-checking organizations and the liberal Boston public TV station WGBH all criticized the piece. “60 Minutes’ misses the mark in its story about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote Poynter. “A sloppy moment on Sunday’s show is raising serious concerns.”
Sorry, Democrats, you lose again. This isn’t about media bias, which, coming from the mouths of the Left, is peak irony—it’s about liberals losing power and not knowing what to do since their action items are garbage.
60 Minutes wanted to damage the mass deportations, but couldn’t without making stuff up. Man, we’ve seen this movie so many times before.
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