Sharyn Alfonsi: 60 Minutes Star Is Thrown Out of Show for ‘Insubordinate Behavior’ As CBS Bosses Fire Her For Criticizing Trump Admin

The longtime 60 Minutes correspondent who publicly clashed with CBS executives over a report criticizing the Trump administration is no longer part of the program. CBS decided not to renew correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract after it expired on Saturday, The New York Times was the first to report.

The move comes six months after CBS made a last-minute decision to temporarily remove one of Alfonsi’s segments, which focused on what were described as “brutal and torturous conditions” inside an El Salvador prison holding suspected illegal immigrants who had been deported. When asked about her departure on Wednesday, Alfonsi told The NYT, “It sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”

For Criticizing Trump

In internal emails obtained by the Los Angeles Times in December, Alfonsi told colleagues that Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss’s decision to hold back the segment earlier that month was “political.” Several CBS executives viewed her actions as “insubordinate,” according to the Times.

Alfonsi later said she did not regret making the remarks, even after the emails were leaked to the media. Responding to CBS’s decision not to renew her contract, she said, “I think it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting.”

She also made clear that she was “not resigning” from CBS, while signaling that the network would have to make the decision to remove her.

“If they want me gone because I did my job, they’ll have to fire me,” she said.

“The concern is we’re going to end up with a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but doesn’t have the courage or the character to produce 60 Minutes journalism that actually matters.”

Fellow longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper reportedly left the program last week, partly because of tensions involving Weiss, according to Status. Cooper, who continues to work at CNN, had been part of the show for nearly two decades.

Long Association Ends Abruptly

Alfonsi joined 60 Minutes in 2015 after first arriving at CBS in 2011. Her report on El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) prison triggered what White House deputy policy chief Stephen Miller later described as a “revolt” after Weiss pulled the segment just a day before it was scheduled to air.

During an editorial meeting the next Monday, Weiss reportedly told staff that “to run a story on this subject two months later, we need to do more,” while also arguing that Alfonsi’s team had not secured enough administration officials on the record for such an important report.

Alfonsi, 53, quickly pushed back, saying the decision amounted to censorship. The situation escalated further when the report was accidentally aired on the streaming app of a major Canadian network, allowing copies of the segment to spread widely online.

When the segment finally aired officially in January, viewers compared it with the earlier leaked version and found only minor differences between the two.

The updated broadcast included comments from the administration at the end of the piece, along with photos of tattoos that officials said belonged to two of the migrants interviewed by Alfonsi.

The most recent season of 60 Minutes wrapped up on May 17, and Alfonsi continued appearing regularly on the program even after the controversy surrounding the CECOT report.