Sharyn Alfonsi Blasts "Political" Decision to Axe '60 Minutes' CECOT Documentary

Disagreements over how a network will be run are common, especially in today's age. A battle for political messaging and determination for what kind of face to present to the world can turn a network into a landmine-riddled field of internal power struggles.

This sort of jockeying for messaging was highlighted after the CEO of CBS, Bari Weiss, axed a 60 Minutes documentary that was intended to expose conditions inside CECOT, which has been at the center of a controversy for the treatment of detained immigrants.

60 Minutes journalist Sharyn Alfonsi has hit back at the decision, blasting it as "political" and vowing to fight on.

In December 2025, the work of several journalists was set to air, exposing the conditions inside CECOT. CECOT is the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, where immigrants said to be illegally residing in the United States are transferred to before being deported.

60 Minutes was airing a documentary on the facility. Until it wasn't. CBS News CEO Bari Weiss pulled the plug at the last minute.

The now-axed documentary decried a "deportation policy that has raised serious legal and human rights concerns." The documentary was an expose into the center's conditions and the questionable conditions under which detainees are kept.

The facts in the documentary were vetted several times along the way and purported to be factual.

Weiss's decision to pull it was immediately blasted by people who considered it a politically motivated action, designed to protect those in the Trump Administration who are under fire for their questionable policies, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Among those blasting Weiss and CBS's decision was 60 Minutes host Sharyn Alfonsi.

In a leaked email sent to colleagues, Sharyn reportedly aired her frustrations and voted to keep fighting against the decision to axe the documentary.

The New York Times claims that the decision to cancel the program and air it during a later broadcast was made after Weiss “requested numerous changes to the segment."

Sharyn didn't dispute that report, noting that "Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices.”

This means that strict editorial standards were adhered to, as well as fact-checking, making the decision to cancel it all the more baffling.

Sharyn explained in her email, "It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one."

She continued, "Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. 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.”

She doubled down on her determination, concluding, "When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘Gold Standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet." Sharyn added that she cares "too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.”