We were shocked to learn Sunday that CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a segment “Inside CECOT” from the roster of 60 Minutes that featured our Investigations Lab students and staff. The segment, hosted by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, focused on the Trump administration’s deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison.
CBS pulled the segment just hours before broadcast, an unusual last-minute decision that took place after Weiss requested numerous changes to the segment and explicitly stated that the piece needed “additional reporting.” However, the segment had already cleared CBS’s legal review and editorial standards:
“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.” — Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi
What matters most to us is that the information our students collect is accurate and rigorously verified.
“The analysis from the Berkeley students is strange…what does the analysis add?” — CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss
We can answer her question. Using geolocation, image analysis, and other verification methods, our students investigated the secret transfers of Venezuelan migrants to the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador by the Trump administration for Human Rights Watch. Our team helped verify detention conditions, identify key locations, and support survivor and family accounts. This work was conducted carefully, ethically, and in partnership with trusted human rights organizations.
The Investigations Lab exists for precisely those moments when a free and accurate press is under threat. In the nearly ten years since our Investigations Lab was founded, our students have conducted dozens of investigations, helping launch human rights accountability into the 21st century. Students learn to fight misinformation with facts, while providing critical capacity to under-resourced human rights organizations, journalists, and lawyers around the world.
We will keep you posted as this story unfolds. Thank you for standing by the Human Rights Center.
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Media Contact:
Maggie Andresen
Human Rights Center
mandresen@berkeley.edu
845.608.4997