JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A question has loomed over CBS News since it got new owners this summer. How beholden are they to the Trump administration? This chorus grew louder over the weekend after the network's new editor-in-chief spiked a "60 Minutes" story. The story, which was set to broadcast this past Sunday, included people the Trump administration had sent to a prison in El Salvador. NPR's David Folkenflik is here with more. Hi there.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: David, start by telling us, what is the story in question, and why did CBS' new editor-in-chief spike it?
FOLKENFLIK: So the correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, and her team interviewed a number of Venezuelan migrants who had been sent by Trump administration down to a notorious prison in El Salvador. And they were going to allege on camera that they had been badly abused, in some cases, tortured, sexually assaulted by their captors there. This, of course, a prison that the administration had chosen for these detainees to be sent to.
Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, had objected initially - earlier last week - to the fact they were referred to as migrants and not illegal immigrants, a term which is preferred by the Trump administration. And then, as late Friday - call it - into early Monday, she decided that this was a CBS story airing on its signature news magazine, "60 Minutes" - it needed to have a prominent Trump administration official, like Stephen Miller, the president's advisor, or somebody of that nature to be on camera talking on the record about this if they were going to lodge these accusations against what the administration had done.
SUMMERS: And this decision by Bari Weiss has sparked a big outcry, as you've been reporting. Tell us more. How's it played out?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, so the official announcement that the story was going to be held back from last night's 7 p.m., or evening "60 Minutes" - came out at 5 p.m. At 5:38 p.m., Alfonsi sent out an email to colleagues that we obtained and other news organizations obtained, which she said that she believed that this decision was made as a political decision, not an editorial one. It had gone through five layers of review, Alfonsi said. And colleagues of hers attested that that was true - an additional layer of scrutiny than most segments are subjected to. She also said that it had passed legal reviews and standards and ethical reviews.
It turns out Weiss, herself, had, of course, reviewed it and not thrown a flag down on the field prior to that. And she said, look, you're giving, in a sense, a veto to the administration officials. We reached out to the State Department, to the Department of Homeland Security, the White House. If they have the ability not to comment and to withhold their reaction, withhold officials from going on camera, and that means that we can't go on the air, we're essentially giving them what Alfonsi called a kill decision. And there are a number of colleagues within CBS, not uniformly, but within CBS and "60 Minutes" that completely agree with that assessment.
SUMMERS: And Bari Weiss - we should point out - is pretty new at CBS still. What is her mandate, and how does what she's done with "60 Minutes" fit into that?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, so you can't evaluate this decision entirely, or particularly the reaction to it, without thinking about how she got there, just as you say. She was the founder of The Free Press, which was a digital news and view sites created around the proposition that the rest of the media is reflexively liberal. And she was brought in here by the new owners of CBS' parent company, Paramount, to reshape and redefine what CBS News is.
You know, the Ellison family that acquired the network and its parent company made a bunch of concessions to make sure that President Trump's broadcast regulator let this deal go through, and they're trying similarly to earn the support of President Trump and his antitrust regulators if they're able to win in a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company for CNN, to get approval for that, as well. And so you're seeing a constellation...
SUMMERS: Right.
FOLKENFLIK: ...Of corporate pressures, even as you have a very new editorial director atop this news division.
SUMMERS: NPR's David Folkenflik, thank you.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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