Bari Weiss Pulls 60 Minutes Segment on El Salvador CECOT Prison Because It Wasn’t Ready
“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.”
Thank goodness CBS has someone at the helm who takes her job seriously.
60 Minutes abruptly pulled a segment that would have likely been a sob story about deportees sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
You know, the prison that held the Left’s beloved “Maryland Man.”
Sharyn Alfonsi, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, who interviewed the deportees, slammed the decision made by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss:
Sharyn Alfonsi, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, sent an internal email to colleagues stating that CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss “spiked our story” about the Trump administration and the transfer of deportees to a prison in El Salvador.
In the email — which was first reported on by the Wall Street Journal — Alfonsi compares the decision to spike the story to the Jeffrey Wigand scandal.
Jeffrey Wigand was a tobacco industry whistleblower whose interview was initially withheld by CBS in the 1990s over legal concerns, a decision that severely damaged the network’s credibility and became one of the most infamous episodes in broadcast journalism.
Alfonsi writes that Weiss declined to speak with her about the decision.
She also says the move was political rather than editorial.
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi wrote. “It is factually correct.”
BREAKING
Sharyn Alfonsi, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, sent an internal email to colleagues stating that CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss “spiked our story” about the Trump administration and the transfer of deportees to a prison in El Salvador.
In the email — which was… pic.twitter.com/y8pT8Vi9fX
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) December 22, 2025
Townhall’s Guy Benson reminded everyone that Alfonsi was behind a 2021 story that tried to smear Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Blah blah blah.
Well, Weiss fired back:
“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.”
Statement from CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss:
"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… https://t.co/hTqRkM2X04
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) December 22, 2025
In other words, it wasn’t ready. Weiss obviously found significant problems with the segment.
I mean, how many times have we covered 60 Minutes controversies? Too many.
Let’s not forget that CBS News had to pay President Donald Trump $16 million over the deceptive 2024 interview with Kamala Harris.
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Comments
The way this country is going that pic will appear in a tv commercial of a family beach day in a couple of years.
I see plenty of awl-‘murican white folks looking like that already.
I’ve never cared for tattoos and wouldn’t ever get one. That being said, to others I say do what you want but so many of you do it to the point you look like a 1910s circus side show attraction.
It reminds me strongly of Holocaust photos — except these people were stupid enough to torture their OWN bodies.
Aren’t these the same propaganda marxists that edited a Kamala interview?
heres what (probably) happened:
the cbs-bs crew probably gave the prisoners knives and escape plans and visas into america
and
kristie noems home address
weiss found out and canceled the segment
“She also says the move was political rather than editorial.”
yeah,,,only us leftists get to do that
Likes like Bari is earning her bona fides.
Good for Bari.
It’s a rather moot point, isn’t it? I mean, who in their right mind would take anything 60 Minutes says seriously?
I should know. I was killed in during the Ford Pinto debacle. Or was it the Chevy truck incident? My memory isn’t what it used to be.
I thought Bari Weiss was an enemy of the people and we should all despise her, that she got her job for being pro-Israel and we should all despise CBS news for hiring her, Tucker Carlson assures me of such.
I am further assured that the next generation of conservatives should think like that.
You have to pick a lane is Bari Weiss bringing CBS to the middle and gradually re imposing standards there great or does the fact that Israel benefits from CBS doing that make it a horror.
You have to pick one
If it is good maybe Tucker Carlson shouldn’t be for you or someone to advocate for?
I have subscribed to The Free Press for a little over a year and like it fine. Bari is a left center liberal and I can manage that fine. If she can rinse off CBS enough to make it main stream respectable then good for her though I have my doubts. The illiberal mind virus may be too deeply ingrained in that network that nothing short of complete collapse can work. Bari is an enemy only to the ‘progressive’ left that has peed all over mainstream liberalism, what’s left of it.
If Bari can manage to bring CBS, kicking and screaming from the edge of the cliff, to the middle, it would be an amazing thing.
What a pair of straw men you got there. Go put ’em in your cornfield to scare away the crows.
The actual complaint that most people who had actually been reading Weiss’s output in The Free Press over the last two years, as well as making general observations about her rise since leaving the NYT, had nothing to do with whatever bilge Carlson has been spewing.
The objection was to people like you doing handstands thinking that See-B-S-nooze would now actually become some flavor of ‘conservative’, especially just because they hired Bari and nothing else. In fact, based on my own observations of The Free Press, they are hardly likely to even become pro-GOPe. Weiss’s primary mission seems more to make the Democrat Party ‘unWoke’. There maybe some slight benefit to CBS being slightly less bat-guano crazy such as cutting a story like this that is likely poorly sourced and repetitive. I don’t expect them to be ‘even-handed’ when reporting on anything might reflect negatively on Republicans.
If Weiss can push, pull or drag CBS news from their current woke/leftist position on the political spectrum back to just center/left and get the folks to mostly check their ideology at the door (at least enough to report context and statements from the ‘other side’ it would be a vast improvement.
I do not believe the general thinking was that Weiss would bring a conservative slant to CBS News. Most who knew of her seemed to realize that she has a liberal mindset, but is appreciative of facts and real debate/conversation on the issues.
I don’t remember reading Carlson commenting on her. Are you making the suggestion that Tucker talks for all on the right because that is ludicrous.
READER POLL:
Would you allow the illegals to stay if we could have Democrat senators take their places in Salvadoran prisons?
Sure, at a ratio of 10 senators per illegal.
No. 20 million or so illegals. Only 100 senators (might as well get rid of all of the blowhards),
No comparison number wise. About equal in damage to the country,
Factually correct does not automatically mean accurate or true.
It’s factually correct that Autopen is alive, but is he?
So Sharyn Alfonsi is upset at her boss and is complaining to everyone. I am retired now but if I did such a thing to my boss when I was working I would be looking for a job. I expect Sharyn Alfonsi will be no longer anywhere near CBS or any of their other companies.
Personally I gave up on MSM many years ago and will not watch them again. I have not watched 60 Minutes for at least two decades and I trust nothing put out by CBS no matter that Weiss is in charge.
Good Grief! They act like a story has never been spiked before for poor sourcing.
It’s never happened to the DEI/participation trophy generation before.
Everything they’ve ever written or drawn has won the Frigidaire Prize.
I’ve read from a couple of sources that the reason she pulled it was that it was so one sided she refused to air it and told 60 min to get the other side, that is, the non illegal alien rights side. Weiss is trying her best to turn CBS around and is getting massive pushback.
Let me clarify. The “non illegal alien” rights side was a reference to Maryland Man. 60 min wanted to air a piece on the prison as a slam at Trump for deporting him there. I bet 99% of the people not only don’t know what CECOT is or where it is but don’t are at all about a foreign countries prison system.
It’s quite bizarre.
Youtube has several videos of CECOT which is clearly done with the agreement of the prison authorities, that show exactly the same things on this video, and probably worse (the solitary confinement is horrible).
There is *no* attempt to hide what CECOT is and how it operates at all. They openly celebrate it. The prison warden greets the various journalist visitors in a friendly way.
The one thing they can’t do (usually) is interview the prisoners (there are at least two that do, though it’s very controlled), which is (partly) because they will communicate over it.
Some of the videos have interviews/cases of people saying they are sent there when innocent, there appears to be no post-visit control and it would be tough to enforce anyway.
AFAICS the rest of it is is people complaining about being sent there. They may have a point – I don’t know – but given “Maryland man” it wouldn’t surprise me.
I see the story was leaked and aired in Canada, to critical acclaim from the left.
I hope Weis gets to the bottom of who leaked the story and makes an example of them…starting with the so called journalist that manufactured the story.
Stories, lawsuits etc about how awful a temporary prison is for people about to be deported with the only source those same prisoners who, again, are waiting to be deported are not interesting to me. The obvious solution is to deport the illegals immediately back to the country of origin. If that country refuses, send them elsewhere and sanction the countries.
My entire comment didn’t print. The above deals with illegal alien holding facilities in the US. I don’t really care if CECOT is holding illegal gang banger murderers in another country. The obvious 60 min angle is that no illegal from here should be deported to that country and housed in the facility so we can’t send Maryland Man back there.