The 60 Minutes star who clashed with CBS News boss Bari Weiss on a report critical of President Donald Trump will not have her contract renewed, a report alleges.
Sources tell Page Six Hollywood that correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi will be out of a job at the end of May when her contract with the network expires.
Alfonsi clashed with the controversial new editor-in-chief after Weiss claimed her report on the El Salvador prison CECOT was incomplete, in part because it lacked an interview with a Trump official, despite Alfonsi having approached the White House with an invitation to be interviewed.
Alfonsi went on to accuse Weiss of running cover for the White House.
Now, Page Six Hollywood reports that she has lawyered up, hiring the high-profile litigator Bryan Freedman to represent her. His previous clients include Megyn Kelly, Don Lemon, and Tucker Carlson.
The tension between Alfonsi and Weiss first emerged in December, when Weiss abruptly postponed a 60 Minutes segment after the network had already begun promoting it. Alfonsi has been a correspondent at the program since 2015, while Weiss became editor in October.
“Inside CECOT,” which exposed the abuse endured by two Venezuelan men when they were deported from the U.S. to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador, eventually aired in January—but not before the internal CBS drama spilled into public view.
Weiss, 42, argued that the story “did not advance the ball” and needed a Trump administration official’s account to be included. Alfonsi countered in a leaked email to colleagues that government officials’ refusal to be interviewed is “a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.” The piece eventually ran without an interview with a White House or DHS official.
Alfonsi, 53, made more pointed remarks about the situation to the National Press Club last week.
“I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our CECOT story being pulled, but we have to be honest about what it represents,” Alfonsi said, according to The Guardian.
She continued, “It wasn’t an isolated editorial argument. In my view, it was the result of a more aggressive contagion: the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear. It’s hard to watch.”
Alfonsi even hinted then that her time at CBS may be limited.
“If I am fired, it will not be the first time,” she said, referring to her short-lived waitressing career.
Alfonsi is not the only top name at 60 Minutes headed for the door. Also departing the show is star correspondent Anderson Cooper, who announced in February that he would not renew his contract for the show’s fall season.
Cooper said that his decision to step away after two decades on the show was to spend more time with his young children—but he, too, had a dust-up with CBS News top editorial brass.
Status reported in January that a report by Cooper exploring Trump’s decision to accept refugees from South Africa was “subjected to an intense level of editorial scrutiny.” Sources told the site that veteran 60 Minutes producer Michael Gavshon was “exasperated” by the edits, which were described as being “abnormal.”
Weiss has not just made changes to the weekly documentary program. She has also shaken up CBS Evening News, installing the MAGA-curious anchor Tony Dokoupil as its host.
Despite a strong marketing push that included Dokoupil hosting shows across the country in January, the evening news program has struggled. The show averaged just 3.85 million viewers last week, below the industry-recognized benchmark of 4 million, Status reported.
Dokoupil likely had higher hopes when he took the job in January and slammed his media colleagues, telling his viewers that the “legacy media” he has long been a part of “missed the story” by putting “too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.”
