the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 5, 2026
Just a day before it was set to air, 60 Minutes pulled a story about torture at the notorious prison in El Salvador where the U.S. sent hundreds of people last March.
Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief at 60 Minutes maker CBS News, claimed that the piece could not run without an on-the-record comment from someone in the Trump Administration. But the administration refused to comment.
The correspondent on the story pointed out the obvious: demanding an on-the-record comment gave the administration veto power over the show. Pulling this piece was therefore “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
This is just the latest step in a long campaign by Trump and his allies to use money and the courts to control how the media portrays him and his policies. Last year, Trump sued CBS over its editing of an interview with Kamala Harris on 60 Minutes—a lawsuit legal observers almost unanimously thought Trump had no chance to win. Nonetheless, the company decided to settle. In reaction, the news chief and top executive at 60 Minutes resigned, saying corporate leaders were limiting the show’s journalistic freedom.
Soon after, Trump ally David Ellison bought Paramount, the owner of CBS. In order to win approval from regulators, he promised the network would become more friendly to conservatives, and he made good on this promise by appointing Bari Weiss.
So, no one should be surprised that she cancelled this segment on how the Trump administration set up deportees to be tortured, and yes, it was obviously a political decision!
It is nothing new that corporations control the media, and shape what news is presented to the public. The TV networks and social media companies decide what to show people based on what they think they can profit from. Nor is it new that politicians try to shape how the media portrays them and their policies.
But the pressure from the administration and its billionaire allies to control what the population sees is increasing in a way this country hasn’t seen for years—perhaps not since the last time the U.S. was preparing the population for a major war, during the McCarthy period. And pulling this 60 Minutes piece was a means of hiding the brutality they are inflicting on people in a foreign country—exactly what the government will want from the media in case of war.