Hey, Happy Sunday! We're off Monday for MLK Day, but we're coming to you today with some exclusive reporting about CBS News, plus the latest on OpenAI, The Daily Beast, Netflix, and more... |
'Inside CECOT' airing tonight |
Nearly a month has passed since Bari Weiss made the extraordinary decision to hold Sharyn Alfonsi's "60 Minutes" story about Venezuelan men deported by the US to a hellish prison in El Salvador. "I look forward to airing this important piece when it's ready," Weiss said.
Evidently, it's ready now. The "Inside CECOT" report is slated to air tonight, according to sources at CBS.
It's still not 100% official – and CBS News PR has not sent out any listings for the broadcast – but the finishing touches are being made this morning, the sources said.
The process to get to this point has been exasperating. After all, the other people involved in the production thought the piece was done before Christmas.
As Alfonsi wrote in her Dec. 21 internal memo claiming "corporate censorship," the piece had been fact-checked and legally vetted; it had even been shipped off to the Canadian network that re-airs "60 Minutes," which is how a bootlegged copy got online, further embarrassing CBS.
That Canadian copy also means media critics will be able to compare the original report to the Weiss-approved version that airs tonight.
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Scrambling for Trump admin comment |
Weiss detractors at CBS say she didn't realize that shelving the CECOT piece would be a big deal, a direct reflection of her TV inexperience, given that the piece had already been announced to the world. Those detractors wonder whether Paramount's political calculations and President Trump's pressures are the real explanations for what's going on.
Weiss allies reject that, saying no journalist should object to her call for "more reporting" that would strengthen the story. They blame Alfonsi — whose contract is up in just a few months — for inflaming the situation and being overly stubborn.
Alfonsi was certainly reluctant to make changes to the original report. But on Thursday, she was tasked with interviewing a Trump official, such as Kristi Noem or Tom Homan.
Weiss said she would personally book an interview, two sources said. So "60 Minutes" producers flew to DC from New York, and Alfonsi flew in from Texas. But the promised interview did not materialize. Everyone went home empty-handed.
I get where Weiss was coming from. She was trying to ensure that CBS had exhausted every avenue for comment from the Trump admin.
But Alfonsi had warned about this in her December memo: "Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story. If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient."
I heard about the DC trip when I asked around about the status of "Inside CECOT" last Thursday night. I was told in no uncertain terms that the piece was not airing this Sunday. "They keep making excuses" to hold the story, a person supporting Alfonsi said.
Others dispute that. On Friday morning, two other sources said management was prioritizing a more timely story about ICE and Minneapolis for this Sunday's broadcast. I was about to report all of this in Friday morning's newsletter when I got a call saying that something had changed. "Inside CECOT" was back in play for Sunday.
By Friday evening, observers knew something was up because PR hadn't sent out listings for Sunday's show. I'm sure more of the backstory will come out in due time. But at this moment, at least, the story is expected to air tonight.
Speaking of CBS...
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The NYT's Michael Grynbaum and Ben Mullin delivered a big weekend scoop on Trump's recent chat with Tony Dokoupil in Michigan. Moments after finishing up the 12-minute interview, WH press secretary Karoline Leavitt approached the "CBS Evening News" anchor and his team to relay a message from the president: "He said, 'Make sure you guys don’t cut the tape, make sure the interview is out in full,'" Leavitt said, according to audio the NYT obtained.
After Dokoupil confirmed CBS intended to run it in full, Leavitt replied, "He said, 'If it's not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off.'" Dokoupil joked in response, "He always says that!" And "Leavitt did not laugh," the NYT added.
Paramount's July 2025 settlement with Trump is the crucial context, of course. "Once a president is willing to sue a news outlet, and the outlet is willing to settle, the calculus for its journalists has indelibly, inexorably changed," Grynbaum and Mullin wrote...
>> Speaking of CBS and Trump interviews: The Independent's Justin Baragona reports on an incident after the cameras stopped rolling on Trump's sit-down with Norah O'Donnell back in November. According to multiple sources familiar, Weiss, whom the president praised during the interview, "quickly approached the president to introduce herself. 'He was so happy to see her and she was so excited to meet him, they both leaned in and exchanged kisses on the cheek,' one source said." The "cheek kiss" incident stunned some CBS staff, Baragona writes...
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An executive order over football TV scheduling? |
In a Truth Social post last night, Trump said "that he would order television networks to block other college football games from airing at the same time as the annual Army-Navy football game," WaPo's Dan Diamond wrote overnight.
The event's supporters, including many lawmakers, have been pressing for some sort of action to protect the Army-Navy game's TV window. (The game airs on CBS.) But several telecom lawyers and media-law experts told Diamond "that Trump's planned order was probably illegal, citing the First Amendment and other regulations." Read on...
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We're 'not watching the same movie' |
"Most news events don't widely register in the public consciousness. Experts say it's different with the killing of Renee Good and the ICE surge in Minnesota," Greta Kaul wrote in this weekender for the Minnesota Star Tribune.
"Videos from people documenting ICE's presence in Minnesota are breaking through to an almost-unavoidable degree," Kaul wrote, "giving people an unprecedented view of what’s happening on the ground."
That's true, but so is Van Jones' assessment in this new column on his Substack. "We are not even watching the same movie," he points out:
"Conservatives see law enforcement under attack. Progressives see unchecked federal power running roughshod over neighborhoods. Same events. Totally different data sets and frameworks. This outcome isn't by accident. Algorithms are feeding us different videos, headlines and emotional cues. Again: we are not watching the same movie!"
Jones tried to watch all the proverbial movies. Check out his full column here...
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>> "A COMMUNITY ON EDGE:" The front pages of both the Minnesota Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press are both 100% about the federal crackdown.
>> CNN's latest: "1,500 soldiers on standby for possible Minnesota deployment, source says, as state mobilizes National Guard."
>> FIRE's reaction to the DOJ probing Tim Walz and Jacob Frey: If their criticism of the Trump admin is the basis for the investigation, "it is blatantly unconstitutional and intolerable in a free society. The right to condemn government action without fear of government punishment is the foundation of the First Amendment."
>> Noem was retitled "Secretary of War on America" in the "SNL" cold open last night. Here's the video on YouTube.
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Daily Beast prevails in LaCivita suit |
The Daily Beast fought for a long time to publish this news: Trump's 2024 campaign manager Chris LaCivita "has abandoned a lawsuit against the Daily Beast," exec editor Hugh Dougherty wrote Friday.
Crucially, "The Beast did not retract the story, made no apology, and gave no cash payment, all of which are common in settlements."
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Lawmakers urge protections for Stars & Stripes |
On Friday a group of Democratic senators penned a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth "asking him to reaffirm" editorial independence for Stars & Stripes "amid planned changes to force more DOD products into the publication," Politico's Leo Shane III reported.
>> The Guardian's Richard Luscombe has more on the growing concerns about the paper's future here...
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👀 Trump's Netflix and WBD investments |
Trump "purchased up to $2 million in Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery investments days after the announcement of a megadeal between the two media giants," a financial disclosure form revealed, "renewing questions from ethics experts around potential conflicts of interest," CNN's Auzinea Bacon wrote yesterday.
The WH says Trump's portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions and he has no ability to "direct, influence, or provide input." But these particular purchases came right around the time Trump said he'll be involved in the regulatory review of the Netflix deal.
Thus "this sets up the potential for a conflict of interest due to his involvement in regulatory oversight of the deal," Ann Skeet, the senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, told CNN. "The president should be making decisions prioritizing the interests of the public solely."
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Checking in on Dan Bongino... |
"Dan Bongino's stint as the FBI’s deputy director has alienated some of his online followers as he relaunches his podcast career," WaPo's Will Oremus and Drew Harwell report in this weekend read.
They say Bongino's predicament "reflects the broader challenge for MAGA movement leaders who gained power by harnessing online provocations, conspiracy theories and skepticism toward government, only to face similar attacks."
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>> If you haven't read it yet, today's the day to devour Reeves Wiedeman's cover story about the Ellisons and Paramount. (NYMag)
>> Will Gottsegen wonders, "What's going on with the Epstein files?" (The Atlantic)
>> John Herrman explains "the YouTube vibecession." (Intelligencer)
>> Isabelle Bousquette says, "Netflix wanted to reinvent live TV. It hasn't been easy." (WSJ)
>> Kim Masters asks: "Can John Landgraf's slow TV model survive?" (Puck)
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>> As the Kennedy Center rebrands, "it's mired in black tape," literally. Julia Jacobs has more on the, ahem, cover-up. (NYT)
>> "What's really at stake in the battle for Warner Bros?" This week I joined USA Today's "The Excerpt" podcast for a conversation about media consolidation. (Apple Podcasts)
>> Isabella Simonetti and Ben Dummett are out with a profile of RedBird's Gerry Cardinale, who "will tell anyone who will listen" why Paramount's hostile bid is superior. (WSJ)
>> Correction: On Friday, I wrote that Bloomberg veteran Jeff Mason was jumping to Reuters, and I reversed things. Mason's longtime home has been Reuters, of course, and he was poached by Bloomberg, not the other way around. Thank you to everyone who caught the mix-up and emailed about it!
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The inevitable moment has arrived: "OpenAI announced on Friday that it will be testing ads in its free version" of ChatGPT, Clare Duffy wrote.
"It's also rolling out an $8-per-month 'Go' subscription tier that includes some upgraded capabilities, such as longer memory and more image creation opportunities, a lower price" than its existing tiers.
OpenAI emphasized that ads will "not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you," and "we'll always offer a way to not see ads in ChatGPT, including a paid tier that's ad-free."
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Tech + entertainment notes |
>> Bradley Olson says "even non-nerds are blown away" by Claude: "Developers and hobbyists are comparing the viral moment for Anthropic's Claude Code to the launch of generative AI." (WSJ)
>> "Tired of AI, people are committing to the analog lifestyle in 2026," Ramishah Maruf writes. (CNN)
>> "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple" is "coming in behind expectations as the sole new wide entry at the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday box office, where holdover 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' will win the four-day weekend." (THR)
>> Meantime, "Marty Supreme" is "officially A24's highest-grossing movie in North America with $80 million." (Variety)
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