60 Minutes cancels broadcast of investigation into El Salvador megaprison Trump sent detainees to

60 Minutes was set to broadcast an investigation into CECOT, the brutal megaprison in El Savador housing migrants sent there by the Trump administration. Supposedly home only to the "worst of the worst," it turned out many detainees were sent there mistakenly, without due process, or in outright defiance of court orders. Just before CBS News was to broadcast the show, after previews and trailers were shown, it announced that it was delaying it. The decision was revealed in an "editor's note" posted yesterday evening to social media.

"The broadcast lineup for tonight's edition of 60 Minutes has been updated," said the posting. "Our broacast Inside Cecot will air in a future broadcast."

The delay was immediately controversial, as any "investigation" of CECOT would scrutinize the Trump administration's use of a venue beyond U.S. jurisdiction famed for its brutal treatment of prisoners. But CBS has recently been merged into the business empire around Larry Ellison, a billionaire Trump supporter, and has good reason to keep him happy with futher mergers in the works that require his support and approbal. CBS is now owned by Ellison's son, David, who placed an inexperienced political pundit, Bari Weiss, in charge of the news division, after paying $150m for her website, the Free Press.

Later in the evening, Weiss announced that the CECOT segment was not "ready" amid reporting she had "requested numerous changes to the segment."

"My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be," Weiss said in a statement. "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."

A top news correspondent there, though, told the Wall Street Journal that her work was "spiked" in a last-minute political decision.

Sharyn Alfonsi said in a Sunday email to fellow correspondents including Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley and Anderson Cooper that she learned Saturday that new CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss "spiked our story." Alfonsi said the last-minute change was, in her view, a political decision, rather than an editorial call, according to the email, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

And here's the New York Times:

"Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices," Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. "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."

Even if the story doesn't touch on other aspects of Trump's unpopular crackdown on migrants, his use of secret police in roundups, or the legal problems surrounding them, its existence will certainly upset him.

The Times reports that Weiss has told staff they must include an interview with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, and did not want to use the term "migrants" to describe those "in the United States illegally." Alfonsi reportedly wrote that White House had refused to participate: if that is "a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a 'kill switch'," the Times quoted.

Mr. Ellison is currently making a hostile bid to outmaneuver a rival company, Netflix, and acquire the media behemoth Warner Bros. Discovery. He has been courting Mr. Trump's support for his bid, but the president has used recent episodes of "60 Minutes" to suggest he is displeased with Mr. Ellison's stewardship of CBS.

It was widely reported that promos of the segment were taken down last night.

It looks like it's been scrubbed from every official 60 Minutes page now. It's only a 30-second promo but here it is if you didn't get a chance to see it.

— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T01:33:01.519Z

Here's Frontline PBS's own 10-minute segment about the CECOT deportations: "The story of three Venezuelan men branded as gang members by the Trump administration and deported to CECOT, a maximum-security prison in El Salvador notorious for its harsh conditions."

It's almost as if Weiss wasn't hired to make CBS News more politically-friendly, but to run it into the ground. The instant and overwhelming Streisand Effect means the segment will now be expected by many more people than would ever have watched it had it been broadcast on Sunday evening.

Update: Alfonsi's email in full:

Per NY Times's Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi's email to her "60 Minutes" colleagues in full:

— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T03:37:37.741Z