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\u201c60 Minutes\u201d on Sunday plans to air a story about Trump administration deportations that was\u00a0abruptly pulled\u00a0from the newsmagazine\u2019s lineup a month ago, sparking an internal battle about political pressure that spilled out into the open.<\/p>\n
In the story, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi spoke to deportees who had been sent to El Salvador\u2019s notoriously harsh\u00a0CECOT prison. When the segment critical of the administration was struck from the Dec. 21 episode on order of new CBS News editor-in-chief\u00a0Bari Weiss, Alfonsi told her \u201c60 Minutes\u201d colleagues that it \u201cwas not an editorial decision, it was a political one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weiss argued that the story did not sufficiently reflect the administration\u2019s viewpoint or advance reporting that had been done by other news organizations earlier.<\/p>\n
The story was updated to include Trump administration statements, although it has no new on-camera interviews. Alfonsi was also set to give more details about the two migrants that she interviewed about their experiences in the prison, according to someone familiar with the broadcast who spoke under condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to give details in advance.<\/p>\n
\u201cCBS News leadership has always been committed to airing the \u201960 Minutes\u2019 CECOT piece as soon as it was ready,\u201d the news division said in a statement. \u201cTonight, viewers get to see it, along with other important stories, all of which speak to CBS News\u2019 independence and the power of our storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision became a flashpoint for critics who said the\u00a0appointment of Weiss, founder of the Free Press website who had no previous experience in television news, represented an attempt by the network\u2019s new corporate leadership to curry favor with Trump.<\/p>\n
Alfonsi said in her email that administration officials had declined to make anyone available for an on-camera interview, calling that a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.<\/p>\n
While pulled from the broadcast in December, Alfonsi\u2019s original story mistakenly became available online. CBS News had fed a version of the newsmagazine to Global Television, a network that airs \u201c60 Minutes\u201d in Canada, which posted it on its website before the last-minute switch removing the piece.<\/p>\n
That enabled sharp-eyed viewers to see what Weiss had rejected, offering the opportunity to compare it to what \u201c60 Minutes\u201d eventually put on the air.<\/p>\n
In the version shown in Canada, Alfonsi said the administration declined requests for interviews and referred questions about the prison\u2019s operation to the government of El Salvador, which did not respond to \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d The story included a brief clip of President Donald Trump saying the prison operators \u201cdon\u2019t play games,\u201d and one from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying that \u201cheinous monsters, rapists, murderers, sexual assaulters, predators who have no right to be in this country\u201d were sent there.<\/p>\n
Since Weiss\u2019 appointment, Trump administration officials have been more visible on CBS News, in interviews that she sometimes helped arrange. The\u00a0president himself\u00a0was interviewed by Norah O\u2019Donnell on \u201c60 Minutes\u201d on Nov. 2.<\/p>\n
The New York Times reported Saturday that after Trump was interviewed last week by new \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d anchor Tony Dokoupil, Leavitt told the network that \u201cwe\u2019ll sue your ass off\u201d if the exchange wasn\u2019t aired in full.<\/p>\n
All of the 13-minute interview was shown Tuesday, an unusual step for one of the broadcast networks\u2019 evening newscasts, a half hour summary of the day\u2019s big stories. CBS told The Times that it had decided to run the interview unedited at the time it was booked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#adding #Trump #administration #statements #Minutes #air #report #deportations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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