Bari Weiss, Editor-in-Chief of CBS News, faces intense scrutiny after allegedly pulling a thoroughly vetted '60 Minutes' segment on brutal El Salvador prison conditions for Venezuelan migrants. Critics accuse her of censorship to shield powerful figures, including the Trump administration, potentially to influence a multi-billion dollar corporate merger involving CBS's parent company.
The article details the controversy surrounding Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, who is accused of censorship after pulling a '60 Minutes' report just days before its scheduled airing. The segment, which focused on the brutal conditions in an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration sent Venezuelan migrants without due process, had been extensively edited, fact-checked, and approved by legal and standards departments. Despite Weiss's claims that the story wasn't ready or lacked newsworthiness, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi argued that the Trump administration repeatedly refused comment, and allowing this to spike a story would give the government a 'kill switch.' The author suggests Weiss, a broadcast-news neophyte, is using her position to protect powerful interests. The piece highlights an unusual chain of command where Weiss reports directly to David Ellison, whose father, Larry Ellison, is a Trump ally and one of the world's richest people. The Ellisons' company, Paramount Skydance, which controls CBS, is aggressively trying to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery. The article implies that pulling the story could be an attempt to curry favor with federal regulators and the Trump administration, who would have sway over the merger. This move is seen as damaging to journalism, turning Weiss into a 'cog in the machine of authoritarian politics and oligarchy,' and a betrayal of the journalistic principle to 'afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.'
