A CBS News segment yanked off the air at the last minute by editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was apparently showcased in Canada, with its content quickly spreading online.
The “60 Minutes” story, “Inside CECOT,” featured testimonies from Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration from the U.S. to CECOT, a notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador. Weiss canned the segment on Sunday, just three hours before it was set to air, saying it “wasn’t ready” to be presented.
“The only newsroom I’m interested in running is one in which we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest editorial matters with respect, and, crucially, where we assume the best intent of our colleagues,” Weiss told CNN.
However, a 13-minute portion appeared to air on Global TV’s free website and app for two hours before being removed, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
A prisoner featured in the segment tells “60 Minutes” corespondent Sharyn Alfonsi that he and others were taken to “a cell for punishment” which he described as “a little room where there’s no light, no ventilation, nothing.”
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“After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour, and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us while we were in there,” the man tells Alfonsi.
The segment also includes comments made by President Donald Trump on El Salvador’s prisons, calling them “very strong facilities, and they don’t play games.” Also featured is White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who describes those sent to the facility as “heinous monsters.” The “60 Minutes” report found that the majority of those deported had non-violent or no criminal records.
In an internal memo obtained by the New York Times, Alfonsi defended her segment and called Weiss’s decision to scrap it “corporate censorship.”
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi said. “It is factually correct.”
Philippe Bolopion, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said the organization is keen to see the segment released to highlight conditions at CECOT.
“The evidence is clear regardless of what airs on 60 Minutes,” Bolopion told CNN. “The Trump administration disappeared these Venezuelan men to a mega prison in El Salvador where they were systematically tortured.”
