CBS News Vs. Sharyn Alfonsi Could End Up In Court As Bari Weiss Fires Ex-’60 Minutes’ Correspondent

EXCLUSIVE: The courthouse or the boardroom could be the next venue for Sharyn Alfonsi and CBS News now that the seasoned journalist has been pink slipped not just from 60 Minutes, but the Bari Weiss-led division too.

One day after going public with the end of her decade long role at the acclaimed newsmagazine show, Alfornsi has been shown the door at CBS News itself, Deadline can confirm.

The firing of Alfonsi comes as would-be contrarian and controversy courting Weiss this morning made long anticipated sweeping changes at 60 Minutes.

New York Times alum Nick Bilton has been brought in as executive producer of the show, with Tanya Simon out ASAP. Having already lost a weary Anderson Cooper, 60 Minutes has also axed EP Draggan Mihailoivich, along with correspondent Cecilia Vega, along with Alfornsi. More changes in personnel as well as format are in the offering, sources close to events tell me.

In terms of Alfonsi, who has been in a public squabble with Weiss for months over a Trump administration critical 60 Minutes segment was spiked at the 11th hour last year, the journalist may not be going so quietly.

Alfonsi has hired hard hitting litigator Bryan Freedman, I hear. Representation that indicates a legal tussle is in the making, perhaps behind closed doors, perhaps not.

Best known of late for his role in the now somewhat settled Blake Lively andJustin Baldoni dust-up, Freedman in many ways made his bones representing the likes of Megyn Kelly, Chris Cuomo and Tucker Carlson in ensuring their forced departures (to put it politely) from their respective networks ended up being lucrative for the hosts. Whether CBS News’ parent company the David Ellison-own Paramount are willing to go to the mattresses over Alfonsi remains to be seen — or perhaps they will write a hefty check in the hopes Alfonsi goes away without going to court.

Freedman did not respond to request from Deadline on repping Alfonsi. CBS News didn’t have anything to say on Alfronsi being out and out fired, except to direct us to the press release announcing Bilton’s hiring.

Alfonsi clearly isn’t fearful of staking out her ground, at least in recent days.

“Fearless, independent reporting has always been the defining standard at 60 Minutes,” Alfonsi said Wednesday after not having her 60 Minutes contract renewed. A lack of renewal she called “a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”

That chill began in December 2025 when planned and advertised Alfonsi-fronted 60 Minutes segment on the Trump administration’s deportation of migrants to violent and cruel El Salvador prisons was pulled from the Sunday newsmagazine just hours before airing.

At the time, Weiss said the long-vetted piece wasn’t balanced enough for primetime. By balanced, the Free Press founder told colleagues she felt the Trump cam was given the proper forum and time to respond. Internally that flared up as the Alfonsi piece had been researched, reached out the administration and then was vetted and given the green light to proceed — until Weiss stepped in.

While the segment did run weeks later, the stain on 60 Minutes and CBS News has not gone away.

On May 27, Alfonsi proclaimed: “The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not. If this continues, the result will be a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but lacks the courage and character to produce journalism that matters.”

Those words land even harder today — in and out of court.