CBS and 60 Minutes’ Messy Breakup

60 Minutes Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi was let go, and she left us a warning about just how much danger the free press is in.

I’ve been waving my arms for months now about this administration’s assault on the media and press freedom. It’s been a multipronged attack, from extorting giant corporations for tens of millions of dollars (Paramount, Disney), to demanding the firing of individual late night hosts who hurt Trump’s feelings. Every instance needs to be taken seriously, but the most recent development in the ensuing media massacre really stood out to me.

‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi was let go over the weekend, and she did not go quietly. Here’s what she said:

In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like ‘modernization’ and ‘restructuring’ to explain away my departure. Don’t be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.

This is the end of a story that goes back to December of last year, when Alfonsi’s segment about torture at the CECOT prison in El Salvador got pulled off the air at the last minute - a highly controversial, albeit completely expected move by Bari Weiss.

It caused an uproar in the newsroom, along with totally valid claims of politically-motivated censorship (that thing that conservatives used to pretend to despise). It’s well documented, including by me, that Bari Weiss was installed at the CBS news division as a compliant mouthpiece for the Trump administration. And that the Trump-allied Ellisons who now own CBS’s parent company, Paramount, need government approval for a merger that would also give them control of CNN.

So you’re looking at government collaborators about to get control of a massive market share of news in this country. And you have a veteran journalist at one of the most trusted news sources sounding the alarm.

CBS management is abandoning that mission, choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it. The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down.

On the one hand, this looks like the behavior of an administration that feels emboldened to go full authoritarian by taking a hatchet to press freedom in exponentially more egregious ways. But on the other hand, this administration is operating from a place of fear and weakness. Clamping down on freedom of expression means you’re afraid of what’s getting expressed. Pair that with Republicans’ manic redistricting free-for-all. Yes, they’re leaping at the opportunity to abuse the power they have— but they’re doing it right now because they’re terrified of losing in the midterms. If Republicans were sure they could win elections on the merits, they wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of rigging the game.

Now, I’m not saying we should sit back and breathe a sigh of relief. Alfonsi certainly isn’t. Her firing is definitely beyond the pale. What I am saying is that this is exactly why we should double down on fighting back - redraw the maps, push for SCOTUS reform, and pressure our leaders to stop protecting process at the expense of losing our democracy.

This is why I spent the last year writing my book, The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World. There’s no going back to the old status quo. If we’re going to take back the country, it’s going to take a radical new approach. In the book, I outline why and how we can do it. If that message resonates with you, I hope that you’ll pre-order it at the link below.