The news magazine show “60 Minutes” is one of the most famous primetime shows in television history. The show’s generational impact has reached the homes of millions and provided some of the best journalistic television in history.

Typically, 60 Minutes is the torchbearer when it comes to going beyond the headline and digging to the core of what really matters. But on Sunday, they became the headline.

Three hours before Sunday’s show was set to air, an “editor’s note” was posted on the show’s social media announcing the last-minute pulling of a segment.

“The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated,” the note read. “Our report ‘Inside CECOT’ will air in a future broadcast.”

This segment had been advertised on social media as an insight into some of the Venezuelan migrants who had been deported to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) facility in El Salvador. 

This infamous facility has already been the subject of inhumane conditions in other media reports. But this was set to provide one of the more complete pictures of what this facility is. Instead, the plug was pulled. 

Immediately, I was suspicious. 60 Minutes never does this. What could’ve possibly gone wrong?

And then, the truth came out.

Hours after the announcement, The New York Times reported that it was none other than Bari Weiss, the new editor-in-chief of CBS News herself, who pulled the segment. Weiss became the editor-in-chief of CBS News two months ago after Paramount Skydance – which we’ll get into later – acquired her conservative opinion-based website, The Free Press, for $150 million.

Weiss is also no stranger to playing the political game, having already integrated some of the right-leaning politics into the CBS News brand. But this stunt had all the makings of an outright political decision, something that 60 Minutes Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi seemed to agree with.

Alfonsi had this to say to fellow 60 Minutes producers in an email obtained by The Times.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices.  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.”

Folks, it doesn’t get much more damning than that.

Now, why might this be a political decision instead of an editorial one? First, you have to go back to President Donald Trump’s recent lawsuit against the show.

Trump alleged that the show had deceptively edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024. By all metrics, the lawsuit seemed frivolous. The show could easily prove that the interview was edited for clarity and time, as is standard for television journalism on a set one-hour block. But Trump and CBS News’ parent company Paramount settled the lawsuit for $16 million. 

Why is that, you may ask? It’s simple. Paramount was seeking a merger with Skydance in the $4.75 billion range. But it couldn’t happen unless it got government approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It’s pretty easy to connect the dots.

But it gets deeper. Now, Paramount Skydance, along with its main man, David Ellison, is launching a bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. It faces steep competition from Netflix, which was long the leader in the clubhouse to make the merger.

Whatever happens, this merger will also require approval from the FCC. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

But if you thought Trump was happy with CBS News after the Paramount-Skydance merger, think again. This is what he wrote a few weeks ago on Truth Social.

“For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover,’ than they have ever treated me before,” Trump wrote.

So how do you get in the good graces of the man who could ultimately dictate a merger worth billions? Maybe it’s giving an hour of airtime to Erika Kirk. Maybe it’s inviting more conservative figures on CBS programming.

Or maybe it’s pulling a segment that the Trump administration may not like.

One of Weiss’ critiques of the segment, according to The Times, is that she wanted an interview with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller or an equally-ranked official. That in itself is a responsible editorial decision. Except that Alfonsi had already reached out to the White House, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for comment, which all declined to be a part of the story.

So that left Weiss with a tough decision. Run the story knowing that one side of it refused to participate, or don’t run the story in fear of angering the people in power? 

Unfortunately, Weiss made the wrong decision.

Now, we run into a dangerous scenario in these precarious times. The fact that the government can have a say in what does and doesn’t run in a news outlet is scary by itself. That’s already happened at the Pentagon, with the circus that is the “new press corps.” It’s even scarier when it’s the biggest news magazine show in the world.

Is this the beginning of the end for 60 Minutes and CBS News? I hope not. But Bari Weiss’ questionable leadership may mean the clock is ticking.

It’s disappointing to see where this could be heading, but I can’t express my emotions toward the situation any better than Alfonsi herself.

“When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”

Ditto.

***

Hours after I finished writing this column, the funniest thing possible wound up happening.

The segment in question was delivered and aired on Canada’s Global TV app. This meant that everyone could see the segment for themselves.

As expected, the segment was thorough, thought-provoking and showed just how awful prison conditions at CECOT really are. It also clearly stated that the U.S. government wanted no part in the interview and referred all questions to CECOT officials. Again, it was responsible journalism.

What’s not as responsible is the way that Bari Weiss has handled this. The absolute best case scenario is that Weiss steps down and CBS can begin to restore its integrity. 

But for now, we can at least laugh at the sheer incompetence for the segment being allowed to hit the airwaves despite Weiss’ best efforts.

Evan Newton is the managing editor of The Covington News. He can be reached at enewton@covnews.com.