The past couple of days have been filled with intrigue and heavy on the melodrama in media circles. A 60 Minutes news segment about the El Salvador prison where many recent U.S. deportees have been sent was pulled by the head of the news division, Bari Weiss. Weiss stated that she wanted to have more content for completion, including having official statements from administration officials. The fallout from the segment being pulled has been loud and extreme.
For clarification, Weiss did not say she was killing the segment, conducted by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, but that the piece needed to have more official comments. The decision to apply the brakes to have a more sound presentation has many in journalism circles outraged, and this speaks volumes.
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Brian Stelter, as expected, has been all over this story, and he makes a rather daft conclusion: This decision is severely impacting the reputation of the program.
"60 Minutes" just suffered a severe blow to its credibility. One of its own correspondents fears the program is being "dismantled," and some employees are threatening to quit: https://t.co/wz1Oo0Xr9l
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 22, 2025
Understand now, 60 Minutes has somehow suffered a credibility issue when it acts to ensure that a news report is correct and fully fleshed out? This is the same Brian Stelter who loves to tout how his network has sterling editorial rigor, and they have layers of vetting for their journalism. But now he complains that Weiss wants to ensure a similar process for this story.
Making his assessment more laughable is the notion that the show has not suffered credibility hits over infamous instances of flawed journalism. The Dan Rather fraudulent documents broadcast still looms to this day. The network settled a lawsuit with President Trump over the manipulative editing of their Kamala Harris interview just ahead of the election. But wanting to hold on to a piece before broadcast to assure accuracy is considered problematic.
One question not addressed by any of those complaining about this move is, why is this regarded as a time-sensitive issue? If this segment was held for one week to get the proper framing from administration officials, how is it diminished in any capacity?
The outrage seems to be that Weiss is not considered one of their own, and her meddling is regarded as offensive. The complaints are that this segment had been vetted multiple times over by legal, producers, and editors, but Weiss came in at the last minute to spike the story. The attitude is that the network veterans know better and should not be questioned in this fashion.
Some have said that administration comments were not needed, as they would have either corrupted the piece or their commentary was not provided. Alfonsi herself angrily stated that administration officials declined to comment, and that should not be cause to stall or kill a segment. But then there is conflicting information from the administration, which asserts they had three divisions providing comments on the record ahead of the production.
Some nuggets in here @axios:
— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) December 22, 2025
- Can confirm WH, State Dept and DHS all provided on record comment in response to CBS News journalists’ request for comment ahead of the segment. None of those comments made airhttps://t.co/hFkRmt5Uv9
If this holds up as true, that is a serious miscue, and one that tracks with what we have seen from Alfonsi in the past. Along with the previous examples, there was another deeply problematic 60 Minutes piece that affected the show's reputation, and it involved the same reporter.
During the pandemic, Florida made the decision to have vaccines provided to residents at the Publix grocery stores situated throughout the state. Alfonsi’s report suggested that this decision was made because the owners of the store chain donated to the DeSantis campaign, and her report was entirely accusatory in nature. That only begins to note the problems.
For starters, there was no proof of the alleged pay-for-play, nor was it ever explained how the stores profited from staging free vaccinations. Alfonsi also failed to explain that the governor’s office was not where the decision to select Publix as the provider had been made.
She also bypassed the explanation that the State Emergency Management Division decided to go with Publix as the vaccine provider location. Its director informed the production of this detail, and he was willing to sit for an interview, but had been told they do not accept interviews by teleconference. However, on the broadcast, they managed to include a Zoom conference interview with a Democrat state politician who was critical of DeSantis.
Alfonsi’s segment played a video of a speech made by DeSantis on the vaccinations announcement, but they edited out the portion where he asserted that the EMD had decided to use the Publix stores. So the production had this information prior to broadcast, but they chose to omit the director's interview, and deceptively edited the governor’s words, done to maintain the accusatory narrative.
These are all disqualifying actions that would have been grounds for Alfonsi to be dismissed. Yet today, she is angrily critical of her boss over the claim that journalism's integrity was being compromised.
Much of the screeching seen from media players today is filled with supposition or outright declarations that this move by Bari Weiss was made at the behest of the Trump administration. It is a convenient accusation, as it implies upper-level corruption and impugns the character of this news director many have opposed since she was hired.
Drudge's lead: "CBSNEWS SHIELDS THE DON!" pic.twitter.com/6f9GDqj8VF
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 22, 2025
There is, of course, a central problem to this charge, and that is the lack of anything tangible for these accusers to point to. It just “feels” like Trump made this call, and it is all based on “context." But this undermines all of the insistent complaints being made. When you insist that the journalism of this piece was above criticism, but you resort to baseless conspiracy theories when defending it, you discredit yourself as a voice of journalistic rectitude.
As it stands, this contested 60 Minutes segment was sent out to a Canadian affiliate, and it has uploaded it in its current form. Many are cheering and stating this is a moral victory for journalism. What we are not hearing is people announcing what a trenchant and vital piece of journalism it is.
