PZ wrote a good summary of CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss pulling the 60 Minutes segment on CECOT because the White House refused to comment. (Or is she really the ideological officer at CBS?)

Zeteo posted an article describing Weiss’s history of praising El Salvador’s dictator and CECOT. Apparently, Weiss was praising CECOT before she was hired to enforce political correctness at CBS News. Zeteo quotes from a Free Press post she co-wrote making light of CECOT.

Perhaps the most disturbing example was an April article on CECOT co-written by Nellie Bowles, Weiss’s wife and a Free Press co-founder. The piece describes how Republicans had gone to the mega prison, notorious for accusations of torture, to take photos in front of the inmates – citing for example, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “posting a fun video in front of caged, tatted men.”

The Free Press positioned that gleeful draconianism alongside Democrats like Maryland Senator Chris Van Vollen visiting the prison to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the US wrongfully sent there.

Later in the article, the authors write:

In a February speech celebrating the victories of the conservative movement around the world – an address shared by The Free Press – Weiss boasted about how Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele “has turned his country from one of the most dangerous nations on Earth into one of the safest in the Western Hemisphere.” In March, Weiss again touted Bukele’s victory as an example of right-wing parties sweeping elections everywhere.

She did not mention in either instance that Bukele declared a “state of exception” suspending basic rights in El Salvador as part of his supposed crackdown on gangs. El Salvador now has the world’s highest incarceration rate, by far. Bukele’s government has dismantled his political opposition, thrown his critics and watchdogs in jail, and rounded up many thousands of innocents.

I hadn’t watched 60 Minutes in years until I saw the leaked segment on Substack. It presented the Trump Administration’s arguments without resorting to the false balance Weiss apparently wanted. The truth is CECOT is a horrible place run by horrible people who are proud of their cruelty. Kidnaping immigrants and sending them to CECOT only compounds the administration’s inhumanity.

Regardless of whether Weiss just wanted an excuse to drop the segment, or believes in giving the administration veto power over CBS News, her decision ended up bringing more attention to the segment than it would have gotten if it had aired as planned. She also showed the world her true role as the ideological officer at CBS News.