The final weeks of 2025 delivered a bombshell for American journalism, as CBS News became the epicenter of a heated controversy over the abrupt cancellation of a much-anticipated investigative segment. The story, titled “Inside CECOT,” was set to air on the venerable news program 60 Minutes on December 22, 2025. Its focus: the harrowing journey of more than 200 Venezuelan migrants deported by the U.S. government and sent directly to CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious maximum-security prison, where they reportedly endured months of torture and abuse.
But just three hours before the scheduled broadcast, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled the plug. The decision, which Weiss attributed to the segment’s lack of “sufficiently balanced information,” sent shockwaves through the newsroom and beyond. The move came despite the fact that “Inside CECOT” had passed all internal reviews, including clearance from CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. According to EL PAÍS, the segment had already been promoted by CBS and was eagerly awaited by viewers and human rights advocates alike.
Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who co-produced the segment, didn’t mince words in her response. In an internal note to colleagues—later leaked to social media—she accused CBS News of caving to political pressure. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi wrote. “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.” Her frustration was echoed by others in the journalistic community, who saw the move as a troubling precedent.
Weiss, for her part, insisted the decision was standard editorial practice. “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be. 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,” she said in a statement cited by NBC News and EL PAÍS. Weiss had expressed concern that the story did not include the Trump administration’s perspective, after none of its officials agreed to participate. She reportedly provided the reporting team with the cell phone number of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, but was met with silence.
For Alfonsi and her team, the administration’s refusal to comment shouldn’t have been a deal-breaker. “Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” Alfonsi argued in her memo. “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.” The story, Alfonsi insisted, was about the hundreds of Venezuelan deportees and their suffering—not the administration itself.
Despite CBS’s efforts to keep the segment off American airwaves, the story found new life north of the border. Global TV, the Canadian rights holder, aired “Inside CECOT” in full on its own Sunday news program. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the segment was also briefly available on Global TV’s website and app, where it remained for two hours before being removed. But by then, the genie was out of the bottle: the segment quickly spread across social media, shared by politicians, journalists, and human rights advocates eager to see what CBS had tried to suppress.
The 14-minute report included gut-wrenching testimony from several of the deportees. Luis Muñoz Pinto, a Venezuelan university student now living in Colombia, recounted his arrival at CECOT: “The first thing [the warden] told us was that we would never see the light of day or night again. He said: ‘Welcome to hell.’” Pinto described being beaten by guards, resulting in a broken tooth. Another deportee, William Losada Sánchez, spoke of “the island,” a punishment cell devoid of light or ventilation, where prisoners were beaten and terrorized. “The island is a little room where there’s no light, no ventilation, nothing. It’s a cell for punishment where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us,” he said.
Human Rights Watch had already documented these abuses in an 81-page report released in November 2025. Philippe Bolopion, the group’s executive director, told CNN, “We look forward to the segment airing. The evidence is clear regardless of what airs on 60 Minutes: the Trump administration disappeared these Venezuelan men to a mega prison in El Salvador where they were systematically tortured.”
The controversy over the segment’s cancellation quickly became a political football. Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) took to social media to voice his outrage: “A free press isn’t free if stories get shelved just because the powerful won’t talk. CBS pulling the CECOT story on Venezuelan deportees sent to El Salvador’s brutal prison erodes trust. We are losing trust that government and media serve us, not the elite.”
The episode also shines a light on the shifting landscape at CBS News. Earlier in 2025, the network had reached a $16 million settlement with President Trump to drop a lawsuit related to a 60 Minutes interview with then-candidate Kamala Harris. The move, widely seen as a capitulation, was followed by the acquisition of CBS by Skydance Media—a company owned by Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder and Trump confidant. Bari Weiss, who had made her mark as a columnist at The New York Times before founding the opinion website The Free Press, was tapped to lead CBS News after Ellison’s company acquired her publication for $150 million. Her appointment was met with skepticism in the CBS newsroom, given her lack of television and reporting experience.
Ironically, even President Trump, who had initially praised Weiss and the new ownership, later expressed frustration at continued tough coverage from 60 Minutes. “I love the new owners of CBS,” Trump said at a rally, “Something happens to them, though. 60 Minutes has treated me worse under the new ownership than… they just keep treating me, they just keep hitting me, it’s crazy.”
In the aftermath, the CBS newsroom has been left to grapple with the fallout. Alfonsi, reflecting on the sources who risked so much to share their stories, wrote, “These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”
As the debate rages on—about editorial independence, political interference, and the obligations of the press—one thing is clear: the story CBS tried to bury has only become more visible. The segment’s journey from a canceled broadcast to a viral sensation underscores the enduring power of journalism, even in the face of formidable obstacles.
