New York, New York - CBS News leadership is facing accusations of censorship on Monday over a last-minute decision to not air a report on the notorious Salvadoran prison where President Donald Trump has deported people.
CBS's flagship 60 Minutes program had been due on. Sunday to air an investigation into abuses at the notorious CECOT center in El Salvador, but the network quietly announced hours before showtime that the segment would "air in a future broadcast." It was replaced with a piece on sherpas working on Mount Everest.
CBS, which was taken over by the Trump-linked Ellison family earlier this year, said that the prison report needed "additional reporting."
Multiple reports quoted the 60 Minutes correspondent who oversaw the report as saying it had been pulled for political reasons, putting the spotlight on Bari Weiss, a right-wing columnist installed as editor-in-chief by Paramount head David Ellison.
"Pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one," Sharyn Alfonsi said in a note to CBS staff first leaked by The Wall Street Journal.
CBS accused of handing Trump administration "kill switch"
CECOT is a huge, maximum-security facility opened under El Salvador's far-right President Nayib Bukele, where severe human rights abuses – including torture – have been amply documented.
Described as a concentration camp, it has been at the center of major US legal case since March, as Trump sent hundreds of immigrants there – in some cases, despite court orders order that they be returned to the US.
Several deportees who have since been released have described brutal treatment at the facility.
In her note to colleagues, Alfonsi said the CECOT segment had been cleared by corporate lawyers before being "spiked," with Weiss reportedly demanding that it include voices from the Trump administration.
"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."