\n<\/p>\n
The veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi expressed concern about \u201cthe spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear\u201d at CBS News and her uncertainty about whether she will keep her job after she pushed back on a directive to change her December segment on Venezuelans who were sent to the Cecot prison in El Salvador.<\/p>\n
Alfonsi spoke about the incident for the first time on Thursday evening after receiving the Ridenhour prize for courage at the National Press Club in Washington. Her comments come as the Trump administration has piled pressure on US media and follow CBS News editor Bari Weiss\u2019s decision to shelve the segment on the flagship news program.<\/p>\n
Alfonsi had alleged at the time that Weiss had \u201cspiked\u201d the story for political purposes, a significant accusation of journalistic impropriety. Weiss argued that the segment was delayed because it did not sufficiently include the perspective of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The segment was originally supposed to air on the 21 December edition of the show. It ultimately aired about a month later, on the 18 January edition, but was not meaningfully different from the original report and lacked an on-air interview with a Trump administration official.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d she said on Thursday. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s hard to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
She joked that her view was \u201cfor the attorneys\u201d. CBS has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Alfonsi\u2019s future at the network is said to be in jeopardy; it is unclear whether she will return for the show\u2019s 59th season, which begins in September. She acknowledged that uncertainty in her remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for this award. I didn\u2019t know that the theme was hope. My hope recently has been that I still have a job,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd every morning I wake up to another headline that says I\u2019ve been fired.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, recalling an early job as a waitress that she lost, she said: \u201cIf I am fired, it will not be the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
While not naming her bosses at CBS News, Alfonsi spoke about \u201ccorporate calculations\u201d happening at media companies these days. The crowd booed when an earlier speaker mentioned Weiss\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome executives are asking not, \u2018Is the story true?\u2019 But, \u2018Is it good for business?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Alfonsi confirmed that she was asked to try again to book an administration official to comment for the Cecot piece, which was unsuccessful. \u201cBut rather than just running the story, they asked us to change it. I refused,\u201d she said. \u201cNot because I\u2019m a pain in the ass, which I am, but because the story was factually correct, and I argued that any change to it might reflect poorly on CBS and 60 Minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alfonsi said that she worried that viewers would compare a recording of the original story, which inadvertently aired only in Canada, to the final product. \u201cBecause our audience is smart, they would view any change to the story as capitulation or censorship,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy stance did not make my new bosses very happy \u2026 I believe I was doing my job, but I\u2019d be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t scared. Fear is a funny thing \u2013 it can paralyze you, or it can point you to exactly what needs to be protected. Right now, our industry is afraid of the wrong things. We\u2019re afraid of offending power. We\u2019re afraid of losing access. We\u2019re afraid of another baseless lawsuit. But what we should all be afraid of is silence. Because as I learned [at her first job as a waitress], there is a fine line between being a team player and being an accomplice.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that her producers had \u201coffered to hold [her] hair when [she] was so nervous she was puking about what [she] had done\u201d.<\/p>\n
Alfonsi acknowledged for the first time that someone falsely sent a SWAT team to her house a few days after the segment was delayed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess they were trying to scare me into silence,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Alfonsi was preceded in her remarks by Bill Owens, who resigned from his job as executive producer of 60 Minutes in April 2025, citing corporate interference. Owens also received a Ridenhour prize for courage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always said I\u2019d follow Bill over a cliff, and apparently I did,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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