Zero minutes, or journalism on the chopping block at CBS News
Bari Weiss's CBS News makes a last-minute decision to pull a 60 Minutes CECOT report. Also: The latest on the National Guard. And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs.
Just shy of 3,000 weeks since 60 Minutes first aired on September 24, 1968, CBS News pulled a planned report — titled “Inside CECOT,” about the notorious prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration sent people earlier this year — hours before it was to air on Sunday night.
The announcement came despite the fact that there was significant promotion of the segment in the run-up to Sunday’s show.
As Nolan Hicks highlighted, it was the top of the network’s Friday news release about Sunday’s episode. On Sunday, the network deleted the description altogether from the news release, adding a note to the top:
The decision is the latest — and perhaps most dramatic example of — upheaval in the news division at the network since Bari Weiss was named editor-in-chief of CBS News three months after CBS’s parent company, Paramount, capitulated to Donald Trump in settling his extremely weak lawsuit over an earlier 60 Minutes interview with then-vice president Kamala Harris.
[Update, 10:15 p.m.: Two media journalists — Semafor’s Max Tani and The New York Times’s Michael Grynbaum — have reported that Weiss was directly involved in Sunday’s decision.
Tani reported in the past hour that “CBS EIC Bari Weiss had concerns about the CECOT piece, I’m told. The network decided to hold the segment pending, among other things, comment or an interview with White House officials next year…“
Adding context to that, Grynbaum noted, “Among Weiss's suggestions was adding an interview with Stephen Miller or similar senior Trump administration official. She gave Miller's contact info to '60' staff“ — despite the fact that the reporter on the piece,Sharyn Alfonsi, has said that “she had already requested comment from DHS, WH & State Dept.“]
[Update, 10:40 p.m.: Grynbaum has now published Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her 60 Minutes colleagues — which also references Oriana Zill de Granados, the story’s producer.
It’s astounding. Here’s the key:
Here is Grynbaum’s Times report.]
More than 57 years ago, from that first episode, 60 Minutes addressed abuse of governmental authority — covering questions about police brutality in an interview by Mike Wallace with then-attorney general Ramsey Clark.
Although it certainly wasn’t an aggressive interview, the full report followed and quoted a statement from Clark about the scourge of police brutality.
“Of all violence, police violence in excess of authority is the most dangerous — for who will protect the public when the police violate the law?” Clark had said.
The report also included many interviews with people describing their own personal distrust of law enforcement — and reasons for that distrust.
According to the 60 Minutes Tonight fan site, which covered the scheduled report — including the now-deleted video preview — the report set to air was going to include interviews with some of those held at CECOT who were since released.
Specifically, it notes:
Former detainees interviewed by Sharyn Alfonsi describe being held in overcrowded cells with little access to sunlight, medical care, or basic hygiene. Several recount routine physical abuse, prolonged confinement, and psychological trauma. Their accounts paint a picture of a system built for punishment rather than due process, with detainees often unsure why they were there or how long they would remain. …
Produced by Oriana Zill de Granados, the report reflects 60 Minutes’ long-standing approach to accountability journalism. By bringing hidden practices into public view, the investigation challenges official narratives and gives voice to people who otherwise would remain unseen. For many, Inside CECOT is not just a report about one prison, but a broader examination of power, secrecy, and the human cost of political decisions.
On Sunday evening, Dylan Byers reported that a CBS News spokesperson told him, “We determined it needed additional reporting.“
Not exactly an illuminating comment, but, in context, perhaps it is.
When the Paramount capitulation was announced, Katie Fallow, the deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, posed a question: “Paramount’s Trump Lawsuit Settlement: Curtain Call for the First Amendment?“
In part, Fallow highlighted 60 Minutes as the “crown jewel in the CBS News lineup“ and warned, “The message sent by Paramount and other media companies that have settled with Trump is that journalists and news organizations should think twice before publishing reports that might anger the president.“
National Guard update
On December 17, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the Trump administration is likely to win in its effort to be allowed to deploy National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.
For now, those National Guard troops, who have been deployed in D.C. for more than four months, will be allowed to remain deployed in D.C.
The D.C. Circuit had previously granted the Justice Department’s request for an administrative stay of the November 20 preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, under which the federal troop deployment would have had to end by December 11.
The unanimous opinion by Judge Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, held that D.C.’s unique status likely meant that President Donald Trump, as commander-in-chief of the D.C. National Guard, could call up and use the National Guard — including from other states — in D.C. As such, the panel granted DOJ’s request for a stay of Cobb’s order pending appeal.
Although the opinion noted that “our assessment of the merits is rooted in the preliminary and hurried posture of a stay motion“ and would not be binding on the panel hearing the full appeal and left unresolved a question about whether the specific actions taken by the deployed troops violate the Posse Comitatus Act, the order is, at best, a stark reminder of how perilous democracy is for the more than 700,000 people who live in D.C.
Nowhere was that more clear than in a section of Millett’s opinion for the court where she explained that this is a D.C.-only ruling:
Judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, while joining Millett’s opinion, would have gone further.
The two Trump appointees, in a concurring opinion by Rao, questioned whether D.C. should even have standing to bring the lawsuit:
In other words, a majority of the panel questioned standing, but didn’t need to decide whether there was standing here, given the fact that it was unnecessary to granting DOJ a stay. (But, Rao wrote, “In subsequent proceedings, this important jurisdictional question should be given further consideration.”)
Although the case could come out differently when it reaches the merits appeal, this past week’s ruling does mean that troops will remain deployed in D.C. for now so long as the Trump administration wants to keep them deployed.
Elsewhere, though, the Trump administration’s is not having the same success.
National Guard troops have been blocked from deployment in Illinois, and the Justice Department’s request for a stay of that order was filed at the Supreme Court now more than two months ago.
And yet, there has been no ruling on that request.
The last filing on that docket at the Supreme Court — in response to a request by the court for supplemental briefing — was made on November 17, more than a month ago.
Closing my tabs
For those who don’t what this is, it’s my effort to give a little thank you to paid subscribers. “Closing my tabs” is, literally, me looking through the stories and cases open — the tabs open — on my computer and sharing with you all some of those I was unable to cover during the week but that I nonetheless want to let you know that I have on my radar. Oftentimes, they are issues that will eventually find their way back into the newsletter as a case discussed moves forward or something new happens that provides me with a reason to cover the story more in depth.
This Sunday, these are the tabs I am closing:
