A “60 Minutes” story on deportations was stopped at the last minute. Viewers are watching it anyway

A “60 Minutes” story on deportations was stopped at the last minute. Viewers are watching it anyway

A “60 Minutes” investigation that never made it to air has become one of the most talked-about segments of the season precisely because viewers are now watching it online. CBS News pulled a report from Sunday’s episode of the long-running programme that featured the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador. But the 13-minute segment, as originally edited by “60 Minutes” staff members, surfaced on the internet in full soon after the broadcast, the New York Times reported.

The last-minute change had already ignited controversy inside and outside CBS. Bari Weiss, CBS’s editor in chief, said she postponed the segment because its reporting was flawed and incomplete. Critics, including the “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, viewed the decision differently. Alfonsi told colleagues she believed the postponement was “political,” according to the account in the text shared.

How the segment leaked

The leak came through an unexpected route. Because of the postponement, CBS had already transmitted a version of Sunday’s “60 Minutes” episode that included Alfonsi’s segment to Global TV, the network that airs “60 Minutes” in Canada. A CBS News spokeswoman said that by Saturday afternoon, CBS had advised Global TV to expect a revised version of the episode, which the Canadian network aired on Sunday evening.

But Global TV also posted the older version of the episode on its streaming app. A Canadian television network briefly carried the video on Monday, after which copies were quickly downloaded and widely shared on social media. Global TV did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday, according to the text provided.

‘Not ready’ and a newsroom backlash

The segment’s wide circulation has complicated an already difficult situation for Weiss, who is facing backlash from her newsroom. She joined CBS in October from her upstart news and opinion site The Free Press, with virtually no experience in broadcasting, the text said.

On a Monday newsroom call, Weiss said she postponed the “60 Minutes” segment “because it was not ready,” and she said she looked forward to airing a new version. Now that the original cut is public, any revisions will draw heightened scrutiny, with viewers and critics likely to search for signs of political or ideological bias.

Paramount, CBS’s parent company, has sent cease-and-desist notices to platforms including YouTube, citing copyright infringement, according to the text.

The ownership and politics question

The decision has also unfolded amid questions about corporate pressure and politics. CBS is owned by David Ellison, described in the text as a technology heir who is trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal that needs federal regulatory approval. In that context, critics saw the postponement as an attempt by CBS to placate the administration, the text said.

CBS’s “60 Minutes” is seen by an average of 10 million viewers a week. It is not clear whether the bootlegged version of the report will reach a comparable audience, but the fact that it is widely accessible has changed the dynamics of the dispute.

What Weiss wanted changed

Weiss requested significant changes to Alfonsi’s report on Saturday, less than 48 hours before it was set to air. One recommendation was to seek an interview with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff who designed Trump’s immigration crackdown. “We need to push much harder to get these principals on the record,” she wrote in an internal memo to “60 Minutes” producers, according to the text.

In the original report, Alfonsi tells viewers that the Department of Homeland Security declined a request for an interview and referred questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The “60 Minutes” team requested an interview with Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in late November and did not hear back, according to a person familiar with internal conversations at CBS. Additional inquiries were made with Noem’s office, as well as the White House and the State Department, the text said.

The White House later responded on Thursday with an email urging the programme to amplify “Angel Parents,” whose children were murdered by “vicious illegal aliens” the administration was removing. That comment does not appear in the original segment. Instead, the producers included a clip of Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, describing the deported men as “heinous monsters” who must be held accountable.

Weiss also raised concerns about a two-minute sequence featuring students at the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, who researched the Salvadoran prison. She described that sequence as “strange,” and two people familiar with her thinking said she was confused about why the piece prominently featured the Berkeley group.

She further pressed producers to collect more granular information about the men’s criminal backgrounds. In the segment, Alfonsi says “nearly half had no criminal history,” and government records showed about 3 percent had been sentenced for a violent or potentially violent crime, while acknowledging gaps in available records.

The report’s central account

The main thrust of the report is the ordeal described by the Venezuelan men, who said they were shackled, tortured and sexually abused in the prison. Two men speak extensively on camera about their experiences, including one who says a guard beat him and broke a tooth. He recalled a guard saying, “Welcome to hell,” and, “I’ll make sure you’ll never leave.”

In her memo, Weiss described this testimony as “powerful,” but argued CBS needed to move the story beyond what other outlets had already reported. “We do our viewers the best service by presenting them with the full context they need to assess the story,” she wrote, adding, “I believe we need to do more reporting here.”