By Brian Stelter, CNN
(CNN) — “60 Minutes” just suffered a severe blow to its credibility. Now one of its own correspondents fears the program is being “dismantled,” and some employees are threatening to quit.
The trigger: CBS News suddenly shelved a segment featuring the accounts of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
The correspondent who reported the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, said in an internal memo that “the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.”
According to Alfonsi and two CBS sources who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity, the story had been fully fact-checked and legally vetted by the time the network publicized it on Friday afternoon.
But CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss weighed in with questions on Saturday morning, the two sources said. Alfonsi said Weiss “spiked the story.”
One of the main issues Weiss raised was the lack of a response from the Trump administration to the reporting.
According to Alfonsi, “we requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department.”
But the administration did not engage, which concerned Weiss. At one point, Weiss suggested that the program try to interview White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and provided Miller’s number, one of the CBS sources said.
Alfonsi argued in her memo that the administration’s strategic silence cannot be allowed to become a “veto” of a critical story.
“Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” she wrote. “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.”
Weiss responded in a statement to The New York Times late Sunday night, “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.”
Earlier in the day, CBS News said of the decision to hold the segment, “We determined it needed additional reporting.”
But Alfonsi disputed that in her memo. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” she wrote. “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.”
“60 Minutes” segments are commonly screened several times before air, but five screenings is an unusually high number, the CBS sources said.
It is unclear when Weiss first viewed the story. But she has recently become personally involved in “60 Minutes” stories about politics, the CBS sources told CNN.
In another recent turn of events, President Trump has been blasting the newsmagazine on Truth Social, sounding disappointed in CBS’s new owners.
In late 2024, Trump sued CBS and its parent company, Paramount, then under different ownership, alleging “60 Minutes” deceptively edited a Kamala Harris interview to benefit her campaign.
That lawsuit, which legal experts widely viewed to be legally dubious, loomed large over Paramount’s attempt to merge with Skydance Media, a production company led by David Ellison and supported by Ellison’s father, Larry, the Oracle billionaire.
The lawsuit became a flashpoint inside CBS News, where journalists worried that both the old and new corporate leaders sought to mollify Trump at the cost of the newsroom’s credibility.
Eventually, the outgoing Paramount leadership team agreed to settle Trump’s lawsuit, and the incoming leadership team agreed to several concess