CBS News is facing a backlash from one of its own correspondents, and others, after it cancelled an upcoming 60 Minutes investigation into El Salvador’s brutal Cecot megaprison to which the Trump administration deported hundreds of migrants.
The episode of its flagship program was due to air on Sunday night. However, in an “editors note” posted on X, the broadcaster’s official account announced that “the lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated. Our report ‘Inside Cecot’ will air in a future broadcast.”
A CBS News spokesperson said in an email that the segment “needed additional reporting”.
The now infamous terrorism confinement centre, known as Cecot, is Latin America’s largest prison with capacity for 40,000 inmates. In March, the Trump administration struck a deal with El Salvador to send there more than 250 Venezuelan migrants that it accused of accused of terrorism and gang membership.
Horror stories have since emerged about abuse that they are alleged to have endured, with lawyers for some of the men who were later released describing the conditions as “state-sanctioned torture”.
On Sunday, CBS removed a link to the “Inside Cecot” segment page. The page, which previously featured a trailer, now displays the message: “The page cannot be found.” However, a description on its Paramount Plus website earlier said the segment was scheduled to air at 7.30pm ET Sunday.
It was slated to feature correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi speaking to recently released deportees about the “brutal and torturous” conditions they had endured in the prison.
An intro to a preview of the episode began: “The deportees thought they were headed from the US back to Venezuela, but instead they were shackled, paraded in front of cameras, and delivered to Cecot … where they told 60 Minutes they endured four months of hell.”
Alfonsi said in a private note to her CBS colleagues on Sunday that the episode “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.”
Elsewhere in the note, Alfonsi said her team had requested comment from the White House, the state department, and the Department of Homeland Security. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” she said.
“We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”
“I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight,” she wrote.
CBS News is now under the leadership of Bari Weiss, who was appointed as editor-in-chief of the storied US news network in October after its parent company, Paramount, acquired her startup the Free Press. Weiss’s appointment sparked controversy among some CBS journalists who feared its owners were taking the network in a more conservative direction. Weiss had carved out a name for herself as a heterodox columnist and held no previous experience in broadcasting.
Weiss said in a statement: “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.”
The cancellation of the Cecot investigation segment drew swift criticism and accusations of censorship on social media.
“This is really bad. For the Country. For the legacy of CBS News and 60 Minutes,” said crime writer Don Winslow in a post on X.
Political commentator Krystal Ball wrote: “Bari’s CBS pulled their Cecot report which included interviews with immigrants who were tortured in this concentration camp. The Trump regime does not want you to know what was done to these people.”
Reporter Brian Stelter claimed on X that “people” internally at 60 Minutes were “threatening to quit over this”.
