Outcry Follows CBS Pulling Program On Prison Key To Trump Deportations

The leadership of CBS News was facing accusations of political meddling on Monday over a last-minute decision not to air a report on the notorious Salvadoran prison where US President Donald Trump has sent deported migrants.

CBS had been due to air the investigation late Sunday about alleged abuses at the CECOT center in El Salvador on its flagship “60 Minutes” program, seen by many as one of the most prestigious and hard-hitting institutions in US journalism.

But the broadcaster quietly announced hours before showtime that the segment would “air in a future broadcast,” replacing it with a piece on the sherpas working on Mount Everest.

A 13-minute video about CECOT bearing the “60 Minutes” logo was widely circulated on social media platforms X and Reddit late on Monday after the segment was reportedly aired on Canadian station Global TV.

The segment being circulated, titled “Inside Cecot” and viewed by AFP, featured Sharyn Alfonsi as correspondent and listed Oriana Zill de Granados as producer.

AFP has contacted Global TV’s parent company, Corus Entertainment, for comment.

CBS, which was purchased by the Trump-linked Ellison family earlier this year, said that the prison report needed “additional reporting.”

Multiple US media outlets quoted the “60 Minutes” correspondent who oversaw the report as saying it had been pulled for political reasons.

“Pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision; it is a political one,” Alfonsi said in a note to CBS staff that was first leaked by The Wall Street Journal.

CECOT is a huge, maximum security facility touted by El Salvador’s right-wing President Nayib Bukele as the centerpiece of his attempt to rid the Central American country of narco-gangs.

Human rights activists say inmates there are treated brutally.

The facility has been at the center of a major US legal case since March, when the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan and other migrants there despite a judge’s order that they be returned to the United States.

Several deportees who have since been released have described repeated abuse at the facility.

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CBS’s decision to shelve a high-profile story on the Trump administration comes as the broadcaster’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, is in a multi-billion-dollar bidding war with Netflix to buy Warner Bros Discovery.

Trump has made clear he is taking a keen interest in the merger, which will likely need regulatory approval.

Paramount was purchased by the Ellison family earlier this year. Larry Ellison is one of the world’s richest people and a major Trump donor.

The Republican president has frequently criticized “60 Minutes” and sued CBS in 2024 over his claim that the news program had edited an interview with Democrat Kamala Harris to help her.

Paramount chief David Ellison — son of Larry Ellison — brought in Bari Weiss as a new editor in chief this October, leading to expectations that she would steer the renowned broadcaster to be more friendly to Trump.

In her note to colleagues, Alfonsi said the CECOT segment had been cleared by corporate lawyers before being “spiked.”

“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 told The New York Times in a statement that she would be “airing this important piece when it’s ready.”

“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.”

The executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Tanya Simon, told fellow employees that she had resisted Weiss’s order, but “ultimately had to comply.”

“We pushed back, we defended our story, but she wanted changes,” Simon was quoted as saying by The Washington Post in a transcript of the producer’s private meeting with colleagues.

AFP