This week, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a scheduled “60 Minutes” segment reported by Sharyn Alfonsi investigating alleged abuses at CECOT, an El Salvador detention facility where the Trump administration had sent 238 Venezuelan deportees. The decision, made just a day before the Sunday broadcast, sparked immediate controversy and internal dissent.

While the details of why the story was pulled are still coming out, Weiss insists the story needed Trump administration officials on camera, specifically requesting an interview with Stephen Miller or someone of similar stature. She argued that the testimony of abuse had already been covered by outlets like The New York Times, and that “60 Minutes” needed to do more than repeat existing reporting.

The CECOT story was not the first story that was pulled or retracted by “60 Minutes.” Here are a few more examples of when CBS pulled or faced controversy over “60 Minutes” stories. 

Jeffrey Wigand Tobacco Whistleblower Story (1995)

In 1995, CBS initially pulled a 60 Minutes interview with tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand due to fears of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from the tobacco company Brown & Williamson, while CBS was navigating a $5.4 billion merger deal with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. After The Wall Street Journal published a front-page story on Wigand, 60 Minutes finally aired its full interview on February 4, 1996. This became the basis for the 1999 film “The Insider” starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.

Retracted Benghazi report (2013)

60 Minutes had to discredit its own reporting in 2013 following a segment focusing on the account of an ex-security officer named Dylan Davies, who claimed to have raced to the scene and engaged attackers during the attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, in which a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans died. Davies gave a different account to the FBI, and CBS News had to issue a retraction.

Abu Ghraib Prison Story Delay (2004)

CBS News delayed reporting for two weeks about U.S. soldiers’ alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners being held at the Abu Ghraib Prison, following a personal request from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Pentagon called CBS asking them to delay the broadcast to avoid jeopardizing American operations and the lives of soldiers and hostages recently captured by insurgents. The story eventually aired on April 28, 2004, and won a Peabody Award, but the delay sparked controversy about whether CBS had bowed to government pressure.

President George W. Bush’s National Guard documents (2004)

Four CBS News employees lost their jobs in 2005 after an independent panel concluded the news organization failed to follow basic journalistic principles for a 2004 60 Minutes segment about then-President George W. Bush’s National Guard service. 

That segment presented documents purportedly written by the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, one of Bush’s Texas Air National Guard commanders in the early 1970s, saying that the eventual president disobeyed an order to submit to a physical exam and that friends of his family tried to sugarcoat his service in the National Guard.

CBS News later admitted that the Bush documents could not be verified and CBS News anchor Dan Rather issued an apology “We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry.” 

Trump lawsuit (2024)

Trump sued “60 Minutes” for $20 billion in the fall of 2024, claiming it deceptively edited an interview with his 2024 Democratic presidential election opponent former Vice President Kamala Harris. CBS denied it had done anything to give an advantage to Harris, and released the full transcript of its interview.

The lawsuit sparked 60 Minutes’ executive producer Bill Owens to resign. In a note to staff Owens wrote: “It has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ’60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

Paramount Global, CBS’s parent company, reportedly sought to settle the lawsuit ahead of a merger with Skydance Media that would need federal approval. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the Skydance Media merger in August 2025. 

Controversies, retractions, and delays are not new in journalism and CBS’s “60 Minutes” is no different.