Bari Weiss, the little smirking suck-up that is presently editor-in-chief of CBS News, intervened at the last minute Sunday to spike a completed story, titled "Inside CECOT," that was scheduled to air on that evening's edition of 60 Minutes. The story, exposing conditions at El Salvador's hellish Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo prison, had been advertised and promoted by CBS over the preceding days. The story's lead reporter, veteran correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, said Sunday night that the story had been fact-checked, had gone through five internal screenings, and had been cleared by the company's attorneys. Weiss, in a pretty severe and dramatic move, overruled the company's checks and unilaterally determined that the story "needed additional reporting," as communicated by a company spokesperson.
This morning, while mewing her way through a call with CBS News staffers, Weiss explained her rationale. According to several reporters who were fed Weiss's comments pretty much as they were being made, she held up the story for several reasons. By her estimation, the 60 Minutes segment didn't "advance the ball" with new revelations: Weiss pointed out to her employees that The New York Times has also reported on the human-rights abuses occurring at CECOT, which apparently renders any reporting CBS News wants to do on the topic inessential. Weiss also said during the call that the story was lacking because it did not get "the principals on the record and on camera."
Who might those "principals" be? According to The New York Times, Weiss felt that the story needed more of the Trump administration's perspective, and suggested an interview with Stephen Miller. As Alfonsi pointed out in a message to her colleagues, the Trump administration, which has shipped hundreds of migrants to CECOT, already refused to be interviewed or to comment.
Weiss, an empty-suit nullity whose very raison d'être is to speak comfort to power, feels that her news organization cannot proceed with the story without the willing participation of its villains, even when those villains have ignored appeals for their perspective. As has been pointed out by Alfonsi—who was already reporting for CBS News when Weiss was an undergraduate, and who has been doing stories for 60 Minutes for a decade—this absurd position allows the most brazenly dishonest and media-hostile administration in living memory to dictate the boundaries of CBS News's reporting. Weiss, a moron, seems to feel that the reputational harm of backing off a human-rights story at the 11th hour, projecting an unavoidable impression of corporate cowardice, is somehow less damaging to the credibility of CBS News than would be the airing of an undisputedly true news story that fails to "advance the ball" on prior reporting because it does not bear the imprimatur of Donald fucking Trump. This all makes sense when you remind yourself that Weiss's audience has always been powerful wealthy overlords, whose shoes she has never once been too busy to shine. Of course, Weiss also has a complicated history with reporting honestly on human-rights abuses.
Presumably someone at CBS News's Monday meeting asked this flailing asshole what would satisfy her disingenuous requirement of cooperation from the story's "principals." Did she expect El Salvador's insane populist president, Nayib Bukele, to sit in front of a camera and admit to operating a concentration camp? Was she hoping for footage of Donald Trump staring ashen-faced at fresh images from CECOT and breaking down in tears of shame? Would Stephen Miller saying Cry more, libtards in his horrible voice meaningfully "advance the ball," or would CBS News settle for somewhat less hostile obfuscation if it was delivered by one of the administration's many repurposed and interchangeable Florida realtors?
Let's lay it out, in order. Back in July 2024, the parent company of CBS News, Paramount Global, came under the control of David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder and Trump loyalist Larry Ellison. That October, 60 Minutes aired video from an interview with Kamala Harris, and Trump accused CBS News of unfairly editing the footage to protect Harris, threatening Paramount Global with an absurd $10 billion lawsuit. In July, Paramount Global capitulated, and ponied up $16 million to settle Trump's frivolous claim. This October, Paramount Global purchased Weiss's journalistically worthless publication, The Free Press, and installed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. Last week, Trump declined to offer public support for Paramount Global's attempt at a takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, and cited mistreatment by 60 Minutes when objecting to the suggestion that he remains friends with the Ellison family. Now, in December, Weiss has intervened directly to squash a story that Dylan Byers of Puck News reported as "reflect[ing] very negatively on the Trump administration."
Maybe those things are unrelated, but I am for sure thinking about them today! For better or worse, Weiss has found a way of dragging attention to her sad declining news operation. When all else fails, there is always the Streisand Effect.
