Longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who once got into a major dust-up with CBS leadership for a segment critical of President Donald Trump and his administration, is about to hit the unemployment line after the network decided against renewing her contract. Alfonsi’s deal expired and CBS opted not to extend it, with reports indicating the decision was inspired by her “insubordinate” behavior.
Alfonsi’s exit from the program comes several months after a high-profile internal fight over a report on the conditions inside El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, a prison facility that’s being used to hold deported illegal aliens who, according to Alfonsi and her team, are facing “brutal and torturous conditions.” When Alfonsi was asked by the New York Times about the decision not to extend her contract, she said, “It sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.”
The battle between Alfonsi and CBS brass goes back to the last-minute decision the network made about yanking the segment before it aired. The Los Angeles Times got its hands on several internal emails that showed Alfonsi telling her colleagues that Bari Weiss, CBS News editor-in-chief, made the decision to cut the segment for political reasons.
According to a report from Trending Politics News, several sources spoke with the Times, saying CBS executives looked at Alfonsi’s actions as being “insubordinate.” Alfonsi responded by telling the publication she didn’t regret making the comments and attempted to make the case that CBS tried to punish her for not softening the story.
“I think it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting,” Alfonsi went on to explain. She then said she was “not resigning” from the network, going on to add, “If they want me gone because I did my job, they’ll have to fire me.” The correspondent then added a warning about the direction of the broadcast.
“The concern is we’re going to end up with a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but doesn’t have the courage or the character to produce 60 Minutes journalism that actually matters,” she said. The CECOT segment later became a huge controversy after it accidentally aired on the app of a major Canadian network and copies of it circulated on social media.
When the report was officially aired in January 2026, it included additional administration comment and photos of tattoos that were on two of the illegal aliens Alfonsi interviewed. Many viewers also caught other differences between this version and the earlier one they had seen. Paramount CEO David Ellison, a Trump supporter, hired Weiss, who founded the right-of-center Free Press, in October 2025.
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Ever since she was hired, CBS has been undergoing a major shake-up. Alfonsi first joined CBS in 2011 and was added to the 60 Minutes roster in 2015. The last episode of the series’ current season aired on May 17, and despite the controversial fight with network leadership, Alfonsi remained a regular presence on the program.
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