CBS News Declines To Renew 60 Minutes Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s Contract

CBS News declined to renew “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract, which expired on Saturday, May 23, ending her time on the program after nearly twenty years with the network.

“After a brief burst of good ratings results, CBS News is once against under a dark cloud of allegations of MAGA appeasement and corporate overlord overreach”

Deadline

Alfonsi said the decision “sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom,” and she argued it was “a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting.”

Deadline

Her departure follows CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss pulling Alfonsi’s planned “60 Minutes” segment focused on Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a notorious El Salvador prison in December, with CBS later saying the segment “needed additional reporting and would air at a future date.”

The segment ultimately aired in January, and Alfonsi told The New York Times on May 27 that she does not expect to return to “60 Minutes,” while also saying, “I’m not resigning.”

Alfonsi said she learned the day before Weiss “spiked our story,” calling the decision “not an editorial decision” but "a political one," and she insisted in an email that “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices.”

In a statement, Alfonsi said, “The message could not be clearer: my time at 60 Minutes is apparently over,” and she added that “This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting.”

NBC News

NBC News reported that the “Inside CECOT” segment featured interviews with men deported from the U.S. to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism, or CECOT, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, where interviewees described torture and physical and sexual abuse at the complex.

The dispute also fed into broader concerns about editorial control, with Variety describing Alfonsi’s view that CBS News removed her from the program after she raised issues about how Weiss handled the CECOT report.

The contract expiration comes as CBS News prepares a shake-up at “60 Minutes,” with The New York Times describing Weiss as “readying a significant shake-up at ‘60 Minutes,’ her network’s flagship news series.”

“CBS News declined to renew “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract after months of drama in which the journo accused the network’s leadership of political interference”

New York Post

The New York Times reported that Weiss’s ideas include “introducing a raft of new contributing journalists,” adding “shorter digital segments,” and developing “60 Minutes”-themed live events, including events “akin to The New Yorker Festival.”

Variety reported that Alfonsi remains an employee at CBS News, but her contract at “60 Minutes” expired earlier this month, and it said she believes she has been left unable to do the work a “60 Minutes” correspondent might do once the show’s regular season is over.

As the program moves toward its 59th season, Variety also noted that the 47th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards are slated to take place Wednesday evening in New York, and it framed Alfonsi’s exit as part of continued controversy in Weiss’s early tenure at CBS News.