BREAKING: 60 Minutes Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi Walks Out, Lawyers Up Against CBS Over Trump-Era Editorial Caving
Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi is leaving the network at the end of the month, and she’s not going quietly. According to reporting from Page Six Hollywood, CBS has declined to renew her contract, and Alfonsi has since retained high-powered media attorney Bryan Freedman, the same lawyer who secured a $69 million settlement for Megyn Kelly against NBC News in 2019.
The move had been telegraphed for weeks. At a recent award ceremony where she accepted the Ridenhour Prize, Alfonsi made clear whose lead she was following. “I always said I would follow Bill Owens over a cliff,” she said with a laugh, referencing the former 60 Minutes executive producer who resigned in protest over CBS leadership’s attempts to placate the Trump administration ahead of a corporate sale. “And I guess I finally did.”
Owens stepped down after CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss pulled a completed 60 Minutes segment on El Salvador’s CECOT prison at the last minute, claiming the White House’s perspective wasn’t sufficiently represented. The decision set off a firestorm inside the newsroom.
Alfonsi addressed the controversy head-on during her speech. “I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our CECOT story being pulled,” she said, “but we have to be honest about what it represents. 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.”
The CECOT story did eventually air with minimal changes after the Trump White House refused to engage with the network’s requests for comment.
Alfonsi is now the second major figure at 60 Minutes to exit over what journalists inside CBS describe as a chilling shift in editorial independence, one driven by corporate pressure tied to the network’s ongoing sale negotiations.
BREAKING: 60 Minutes Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi Walks Out, Lawyers Up Against CBS Over Trump-Era Editorial Caving
