Sharyn Alfonsi, Correspondent, 60 Minutes Michele Crowe/CBS/Getty Images CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi appears to be on her way out at the network, a culminating event sparked by a spiked segment that she had worked on last year, and a public clash with CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
Alfonsi told The New York Times that her contract with the network for 60 Minutes officially lapsed over the Memorial Day weekend, though she technically remains employed for now as an at-will employee.
“I’m not resigning,” she told the Times. “If they want me gone because I did my job, they’ll have to fire me.”
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Alfonsi, of course, could also find employment elsewhere before CBS News makes any official move.
The segment, which was produced by Oriana Zill de Granados, was slated to air on the Dec. 21 installment, and featured Alfonsi speaking to Venezuelans who had been deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.
CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss told network staff on Monday Dec. 22 that she held the story because it was “not ready.”
“While the story presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, it did not advance the ball—the Times and other outlets have previously done similar work,” she said on the network’s morning editorial call. “The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment at this prison. To run a story on this subject two months later, we need to do more. And this is 60 Minutes. We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera. Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else. That’s my north star and I hope it’s yours, too.”
Ultimately, of course, the segment would air on 60 Minutes largely unaltered from its original incarnation, but the damage was done when it became an international story.
The incident became the biggest controversy to hit 60 Minutes since the infamous tobacco case, where a tobacco executive agreed to be interviewed as part of a 60 Minutes expose into the industry led by Mike Wallace. CBS killed the story citing legal concerns, as well as a pending sale of the network.
In a speech at the National Press Club in April, where she accepted a journalism award, Alfonsi all but referenced Weiss by name, telling the crowd: “Some executives are asking not, ‘Is the story true?’ But, ‘Is it good for business?’”
“I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our CECOT story being pulled, but we have to be honest about what it represents,” she added. “It wasn’t an isolated editorial argument. In my view, it was the result of a more aggressive contagion: the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear. It’s hard to watch.”
In hr new interview with the Times, Alfonsi went a step further: “There’s a feeling that the wall has come down between editorial independence and corporate interests. The concern is we’re going to end up with a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but doesn’t have the courage or the character to produce 60 Minutes journalism that actually matters.”
Alfonsi would be the second 60 Minutes correspondent to exit the show, following Anderson Cooper.
In a farewell video, Cooper expressed hope that the show’s independence would continue.
“I hope 60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes,” he said in an interview on 60 Minutes Overtime. “There’s very few things that have been around for as long as 60 Minutes has and maintain the quality that it has, and things can always evolve and change, and I think that’s awesome, and things should evolve and change, but I hope the core of what 60 Minutes is always remains.”
Weiss is said to be seeking an overhaul of the long-running and top-rated primetime newsmagazine ahead of the fall season. The specifics of that overhaul are not entirely clear (it is possible other correspondents or producers exit), though she is said to be interested in bringing in other correspondents.
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