Sharyn Alfonsi said Wednesday that CBS News has removed her from “60 Minutes” after she raised objections to how Bari Weiss handled one of her reports, deepening a public rift inside one of television news’s best-known franchises. Alfonsi, who has worked on the program since 2015, said she does not expect to return.
“The message could not be clearer: my time at 60 Minutes is apparently over,” Alfonsi said, adding that repeated attempts by her representatives to find a path forward were met with “absolute silence” from network executives. She said she is still an employee at CBS News and is not resigning. “If they want me gone because I did my job, they’ll have to fire me,” she said.
The dispute centers on a report about how the United States deported Venezuelan men to CECOT, a harsh prison in El Salvador. Alfonsi said she believed the report was held by Weiss before it eventually aired. She said the decision to remove her from the program was meant to punish a journalist for refusing to sanitize reporting she considers factually accurate, and she called it “a deliberate choice” that sends “a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”
Alfonsi’s contract expired Saturday, according to people familiar with her situation, and two people familiar with the matter said CBS News executives have made no effort to contact her representatives at UTA to renew the terms. CBS News has not made executives available for comment.
The fight lands as Weiss, installed as CBS News’ editorial leader last year, has pushed a new focus on subject-matter experts and provocative conversations with newsmakers. Alfonsi said that since Weiss arrived last fall, “there’s a feeling that the wall has come down between editorial independence and corporate interests,” and warned that the network could wind up with something that looks like “60 Minutes” without the reporting culture that defined it for decades. “For the last 60 years, it’s been the same formula: tell the truth, hold the power accountable, don’t blink,” she said. “And it’s unclear what next season looks like.”
The standoff leaves one of the show’s most familiar correspondents in limbo, but not out of the company. Alfonsi said she will remain at CBS News for now, while making clear she does not expect to go back to “60 Minutes.” If that holds, the question is less whether she returns than whether the program itself can keep the identity that made it matter in the first place.
