CBS News hit the panic button — and everyone noticed.
Just hours before “60 Minutes” was set to air a hard-hitting report on Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration and locked inside El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison, the network suddenly yanked the segment. Viewers who were promised accountability journalism instead got a feel-good piece about sherpas on Mount Everest.
No warning. No real explanation.
CBS issued a thin editor’s note saying the lineup was “updated” and the report would air “in a future broadcast.” Later, a spokesperson claimed the segment needed “additional reporting.” That excuse didn’t survive the day.
Behind the scenes, “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi made it clear the story was done and cleared. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. 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.”
Alfonsi also warned of the slippery slope. “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. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.”
According to multiple reports, the order to spike the story came from CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who allegedly wanted on-camera responses from Trump officials — even though the administration had already refused to comment.
Weiss defended herself, saying, “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be,” adding that stories get held all the time if they’re missing “critical voices.” She insisted she looked forward to airing the piece “when it’s ready.”
Critics weren’t buying it.
On MSNBC, the “Morning Joe” panel unloaded. Mika Brzezinski, a former CBS News employee, called the idea that the story wasn’t vetted laughable. “Every frigging word, every frame of video is picked apart by editors to make sure they are correct,” she said.
Pablo Torre went for the jugular. “Billionaires are compromising the most important journalistic institutions we have left in this country,” he said, accusing Weiss of “cosplaying” as a journalist while “poisoning the well” of “60 Minutes.”
The timing only made things worse. The move came after Donald Trump sued Paramount, CBS’s parent company, over a past “60 Minutes” interview. Paramount settled, paying $16 million — a deal that sparked outrage from press freedom advocates.
Now CBS is facing a different kind of backlash: the growing belief that fear and political pressure just muzzled one of the last major investigative shows on TV.
Watch Morning Joe’s take on the scandal below:
