After a brief burst of good ratings results, CBS News is once against under a dark cloud of allegations of MAGA appeasement and corporate overlords overreach.
With her contract now expired and inhibitions lapsed, longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfsonsi has tore the Bari Weiss-run division a new one over the direction the once home of Walter Cronkite has gone since Donald Trump‘s “good friend” David Ellison bought Paramount last year.
“Fearless, independent reporting has always been the defining standard at 60 Minutes,” Alfonsi said Wednesday, calling her exit from the newsmagazine after months of butting heads with Weiss “a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”
Back in December of 2025, well-respected Alfronsi pulled back the veil on the early days of anti-woke warrior Weiss’ reign after a planned and advertised 60 Minutes segment on the Trump administration’s deportation of migrants to harsh El Salvador prisons was pulled from the Sunday show at the 11th hour. At the time, Weiss said the long vetted piece wasn’t balanced enough for primetime. Alfornsi, who noted all the usual moves and requests had been made and approved in advance, went public and called the pulling of her piece a “political” move by bosses who wanted to be in fickle Trump’s good graces.
Bari Weiss
Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Uber, X and The Free Press/CBS
Now, after a weary Anderson Cooper left 60 Minutes at the end of the just concluded season, the 20-year CBS News vet Alfonsi, who is still employed at the company as of right now, took her POV even more big picture.
“Today, CBS management is abandoning that mission, choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it,” Alfonsi said in a long statement (see below) over her segment (which later did air) and potential larger issues at play. “The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not. If this continues, the result will be a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but lacks the courage and character to produce journalism that matters.”
Almost simultaneously with Alfonsi’s very blunt concerns about press freedom and journalistic integrity, the Freedom of the Press Foundation is planning to send Ellison and Paramount brass a blistering letter singed by the likes of former ABC News superstar Sam Donaldson, ex-CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta (who recently called the looming situation “state-controlled media” in the making), ex-MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan,and nearly 200 more journos, academics and filmmakers. The missive warns that Paramount’s $111 billion purchase of CNN parent company Warner Bros Discovery will “open the door to improper political meddling in journalists’ editorial decisions.”
The letter, first revealed by Status, goes on to name names and point fingers.
“Ellison will likely alter CNN’s editorial direction (not to mention meddle with HBO’s documentaries) to be more friendly to the administration, threatening press freedom,” it says, noting the MAGA gang (as made explicit by Pete Hegseth and others) “expect exactly that.”
The Alfonsi 60 Minutes exit and the Freedom of the Press Foundation letter both landed just ahead of the News & Documentary Emmy Awards on Wednesday night.
Jim Acosta
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
In a case of quirk of timing, the Freedom of the Press Foundation this morning kicked off a stark press call with filmmakers and journalists titled: How the Paramount Skydance/Warner Brothers Merger Threatens Press Freedom and Documentary Film.
In case you were still unclear about where this was all going, Acosta laid out bluntly.
“I think what’s happening right now is pretty dangerous,” the Trump battling CNN Chief White House Correspondent. “For Paramount, for CBS to fire Sharon Alfonsi from 60 Minutes is a very in-your-face move by people who … don’t care very much about the First Amendment. If they were all that worried about is this going to get through the Justice Department, is this going to go through, they would not have fired Sharyn Alfonsi at the very same time.”
BTW – Acoata was slightly off there. As we said before Alfonsi was not fired from 60 Minutes — her contract expired and was not renewed.
In a dig at new-ish CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and the broadcast’s consistent low ratings (which bopped up over 4 million last week for the first time in ages), Acosta added on Wednesday’s call, “If you’re going to measure things as they normally are in this line of work, then he should be worried about his position — not Sharyn Alfonsi — inside CBS. But this is a very determined group of people who have taken over CBS.
“They are now on the verge of taking over CNN and if you care about CNN, as I do, then you have to be very worried about what is going to happen to this nation’s 24-hour news network of record, and whether or not the same kinds of editorial decisions that are being driven by partisan ideologues is going to affect the news gathering and editorial decision,” he went on to note. “My sense of it is, is that they’re going to do the same thing at CNN as they were doing over at CBS, because guess what, everybody’s just letting them get away with it.”
“News outlets have a First Amendment right to report from whichever perspective they see fit, and Freedom of the Press Foundation will defend that right regardless of politics, regardless of whether any of us personally agree with how the right is exercised,” stated said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation on today’s call. “But presidents don’t have a right to abuse their offices to shape those editorials that the Constitution places in the hands of journalists exist. If executives like David Ellison “are willing to let presidents do so [they] need to stay out of the news business. There are plenty of more lucrative widgets they can go sell if they want to treat news just like any other product.”
Acosta and Stern were joined on Wednesday’s call by podcaster, tech journalist and CNN contributor Kara Swisher (who has declared she will not work for the Ellisons), Emmy-winning documentary filmmakers Laura Poitras and Geeta Gandbhir and journalist Katie Phang.
Having heard such comments and concerns almost from the moment Ellison turned his eye and wealth (with some help from Papa Larry Ellison and his Oracle billons and some Middle Eastern and Chinese money) to WBD, Paramount were quick to respond to the collection of former correspondents and friends.
“We respectfully disagree with efforts to characterize this transaction as harmful to journalism or competition,” a Paramount spokesperson told Deadline today.
“The proposed transaction is fundamentally pro-competitive and reflects a commitment to invest in the future of journalism, not diminish it,” they added, echoing the Paramount party line of the past several months. “Far from limiting competition or press freedom, the combined company will have greater scale and resources to compete in an increasingly consolidated media landscape dominated by global streaming and technology platforms — strengthening consumer choice, supporting creative talent and reinforcing the long-term sustainability of trusted news organizations.”
Of course, talk is cheap and promises can prove worthless once economic (AKA the over $80 billion in debt the merged ParaBros will be lumbered with one the deal is done) and political pressures come to bear.
With that, read Sharyn Alfornsi’s full statement on her 60 Minutes contract being over here:
Over the weekend, my contract with CBS News expired, drawing to a close nearly twenty years with the network, including more than a decade at 60 Minutes.
Following an intense editorial dispute over our CECOT story, repeated attempts by my representation to establish a path forward were met with absolute silence from network executives. The message could not be clearer: my time at 60 Minutes is apparently over.
In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like “modernization” and “restructuring” to explain away my departure. Don’t be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.
Fearless, independent reporting has always been the defining standard at 60 Minutes. Today, CBS management is abandoning that mission, choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it.
The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not. If this continues, the result will be a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but lacks the courage and character to produce journalism that matters. To my colleagues, who became family – working beside you has been the privilege of a lifetime. You are second to none. I’ve learned exactly what it costs to hold the line right now. Hold it anyway. Viewers and the people who trust us with their stories deserve nothing less.
