Bari Weiss Reportedly Explains to CBS News Staff in Private Call Why She Killed 60 Minutes Segment: ‘Did Not Advance the Ball’

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss reportedly explained to network staff that she axed a 60 Minutes investigation into the Trump administration’s deportation policy from Sunday’s show because the work was too “similar” to reporting by other outlets and “did not advance the ball.”

The segment, promoted publicly on Friday by the network but abruptly pulled before broadcast, was reported by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi and examined migrants deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison.

An internal email from Alfonsi to news staff pointing at Weiss’s decision as “political” and a form of “corporate censorship” went viral on Sunday night after the editor-in-chief had reportedly expressed concern about the absence of an on-camera response from the administration.

On a 9am CBS newsroom call, however, Weiss reportedly panned the report for producing nothing new and merely recycling the reporting pushed by the New York Times and others just “two months later.”

“I held a 60 Minutes 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, according to a transcription from sources on the call sent to CNN’s Brian Stelter.

She continued: “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.”

She added: “Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else. That’s my north star and I hope it’s yours, too.”

In her email, Alfonsi rejected that rationale outright, writing that CBS had repeatedly sought interviews with the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, all without success.

“Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” she wrote. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.”

Alfonsi stressed that the segment had been screened five times and cleared by both legal and standards editors. The reporting, she said, was “factually correct,” and pulling it was a “betrayal” of sources who “risked their lives” to testify.

As fallout continues, multiple sources told CNN that staff are now openly questioning whether they can continue working under the current leadership.