I viewed the version of the 60 Minutes report “Inside CECOT” that was distributed to Canada’s Global TV app and circulated online, then pulled due to copyright claims. Based on my viewing of that version, here’s my critique.
Bari Weiss was correct: the story wasn’t ready for air.
By way of background, the 60 Minutes segment titled “Inside CECOT,” reported by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, was originally scheduled to air on CBS on December 21. But editor-in-chief Bari Weiss abruptly pulled it just hours before broadcast saying that more work needed to be done.
The report investigated El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a massive maximum-security mega-prison built in 2022 under President Nayib Bukele as part of his aggressive anti-gang crackdown.
The prison is known for harsh conditions including allegations of torture, no outdoor access, and overcrowding.
The 60 Minutes report focused on the Trump administration’s deportation of over 250 mostly Venezuelan men to CECOT under a paid agreement with El Salvador, invoking wartime powers to shortcut normal due process. The 60 Minutes reporter interviewed two men who claim to have served time in CECOT but were released. They described enduring months of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.
CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss postponed the segment, citing the need for additional reporting and stating it did not sufficiently advance prior coverage.
Alfonsi and her supporters allege Weiss’s decision was politically motivated.
After watching the report as edited, here’s my feedback on why it wasn’t ready for prime time.
Considering the subject matter, the story needed to explain:
- How 60 Minutes located the two alleged former CECOT inmates interviewed. If the two men were brought to 60 Minutes by the human rights group featured, that needed to be disclosed.
- How 60 Minutes confirmed, firsthand, that the men were CECOT inmates. If 60 Minutes did not confirm this critical fact, firsthand, that needed to be disclosed, as well as what assurances the reporter felt she had that the men are who they were presented themselves to be.
Other shortfalls that needed to be addressed or admitted in the story:
The bulk of the story was based on the word of an illegal immigrant with no stated independent verification of his key claims. It’s akin to taking the word of an alleged murderer that he’s innocent and a good guy who’s being unfairly persecuted for no reason. Maybe it’s true, but certainly the claims deserve to be treated with a dose of rational skepticism. In the 60 Minutes report: they were not.
60 Minutes characterized the main interviewee as a good guy with no criminal background or gang affiliation, based on his own word and the supposed absence of his name in a gang database.
However, there’s no way for 60 Minutes to guarantee that a foreigner who entered the US illegally had no criminal background elsewhere. There is no way for a reporter to confirm somebody is not a gang member, even if he’s not in a database.
If the reporter felt she had confirmed this, she needed to state how she had done so. There was an extensive discussion of tattoos, which felt like a red herring, as if the reporter were trying too hard in the absence of evidence to point to other facts, as if they provided proof.
60 Minutes didn’t seem to question the main interviewee’s claim that US officials arbitrarily singled him out among millions of illegal immigrants and treated him as a gang member for no reason. This doesn’t make sense and, if true, required a bit more exposition. Or, the reporter needed to acknowledge she didn’t confirm the interviewee’s claims about what US officials told him, and the circumstances surrounding his deportation.
The interviewees’ claims about their captivity require a similar suspension of disbelief: they seem to claim they’re just good, innocent guys, but that for no reason, the CECOT officials singled them out among thousands to put in the isolation room and beat every half hour (or constantly for hours, depending upon which inmate was describing the experience). Maybe it’s true, but the claims are part of a long list under the heading of “could not be confirmed.” Yet they were treated in the report as if they were indisputable.
The weird reliance on the alleged former inmate’s word extended to the visit of Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem. Alfonsi asks the man if Noem spoke with any detainees when she was on site, and he claims she did not. But what makes the reporter believe this inmate would be in a position to know whether Noem spoke to inmates? Did he accompany her on the entire tour? Is he omniscient? Could he somehow see her acts and interactions at all times among thousands of inmates? Absent an explanation, he seems to be a poor source on these points, but the reporter treated him as if he were an authority.
Additionally, the question of whether Noem talked to inmates seems off-point. The story didn’t allege that Noem had claimed to talk to inmates in the first place. And if she didn’t talk to inmates, it doesn’t get to the heart of the torture claims at hand.
The reporter presented several facts as “gotchas” that didn’t come off as any type of “gotcha.” If these facts were, indeed, proof of some mistreatment, it was not explained well enough in the story.
One example was the supposed “gotcha” over Homeland Security Chief Noem recording a social media video with inmates in the background whom 60 Minutes said were Salvadorans, not Venezuelans. There was no explanation as to why 60 Minutes thought this was somehow proof of torture or mistreatment. It’s no secret that Salvadorans are held in the El Salvadoran prison. And there was no mention in the story that Noem had represented the men as being from Venezuela. So why was it presented as a “gotcha” moment, or proof of anything, that the men seen were supposedly Salvadoran?
Another supposed “gotcha” was over the lights being on 24/7 inside CECOT. Yet by 60 Minutes’ own admission, the head of the prison had acknowledged, on camera, that the lights are on 24/7.
The report also failed to balance its reporting on this practice, taking the position that persistent lighting is intended as torture. The story should have acknowledged that it’s not unusual for high-security units, solitary confinement areas, and supermax facilities, to keep lights on 24/7 (or use constant illumination) primarily for security and operational reasons. This is so that there is constant visibility in the high risk setting to conduct frequent welfare checks; perform headcounts; and better monitor for suicides, assaults, escapes, or contraband. Although the practice is widely criticized by human rights groups, some courts have upheld the practice as having a “legitimate penological interest.”
60 Minutes like the rest of their Fake News Shows(Sunday Morning, Eye on America) is all Fake News/Leftists Propaganda and the same gose for the other major News Network
So it’s not a total loss, distribute this propaganda to the south. This would show criminals that are thinking about illegally coming to the US what would be their fate. It might also warn the run-of-the-mill illegal immigrant that it is possible, with the millions and millions of other illegal immigrants, they may be mistaken for a violent criminal gang member illegal immigrant and sent to CECOT.
Just to be clear, when they resort to lying, obscuring or skewing the facts, they KNOW they are wrong. CBS should give Weiss a bonus, because she probably saved them another multi-million dollar penalty.