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Did the pulled 60 Minutes' report on El Salvador's CECOT prison air in Canada? Brian Shelter confirms Global TV app rumor

The 60 Minutes story on CECOT, which Bari Weiss pulled from the US on Sunday, has aired in Canada anyway.
posted by Akanksha Mishra
Tuesday 12/23/2025 at 2:01AM EST
  • SAN VICENTE, EL SALVADOR - APRIL 04: Soldiers guarding the prison entrance at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, in San Vicente, El Salvador on April 04, 2025. The Cecot prison was presented to Salvadorans by President Nayib Bukele on national radio and television as the largest prison in the Americas, built for members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS 13) gang and the two Barrio 18 groups (Sureña and Revolucionaria). Following the deportation of hundreds of migrants from the United States to El Salvador, it became a resource for the Donald Trump administration in implementing its immigration policy. (Photo by Alex Pena/Anadolu via Getty Images)
    SAN VICENTE, EL SALVADOR - APRIL 04: Soldiers guarding the prison entrance at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, in San Vicente, El Salvador on April 04, 2025. The Cecot prison was presented to Salvadorans by President Nayib Bukele on national radio and television as the largest prison in the Americas, built for members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS 13) gang and the two Barrio 18 groups (Sureña and Revolucionaria). Following the deportation of hundreds of migrants from the United States to El Salvador, it became a resource for the Donald Trump administration in implementing its immigration policy. (Photo by Alex Pena/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    Over the last weekend, a segment from a special 60 Minutes report scheduled to air on CBS News was pulled by the network's leadership. 

    The decision - which was taken by Bari Weiss - was taken against a story on CECOT (Terrorism Confinement Center) - a maximum-security mega-prison in Tecoluca, which is considered one of El Salvador's harshest prisons.

    Titled Inside CECOT, the story was announced last week, and was scheduled to air on Sunday night (September 21), before it got pulled. While Weiss's decision to shelve the report sparked a nation-wide criticism, it eventually found its way to the US audience through Canada. Brian Stelter confirmed the same in his latest tweet:

    The episode was led by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. At the time of pulling the story from the US, Bari Weiss cited the lack of response from revelant government officials as the reason behind it, raising concerns about its contents. 

    Per CNN, the full episode ofInside CECOT was aired on Global TV's streaming platform in Canada over the weekend.

    This could've happened because of a common media practice, wherein networks deliver the taped programming to their affiliate TV partners ahead of time. 

    As viewers took notice of it, videos of the episode were quickly circulated over social media. 

    Per the media outlet, the segment that was pulled from the US contained short excerpts from President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

    However, the focus of the story was obviously on certain prisoners of CECOT - Venezuelan immigrants that were deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration. 

    Therefore, it's safe to assume that the segment un-aired within the US didn't make any explosive revelation that the audience was expecting it to. 

    After it ended, Alfonsi claimed that the DHS had "declined our request for an interview and referred all questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The government there did not respond to our request". ​

    A CECOT prisoner speaks about "never-ending" torture in 60 Minutes

    In her introduction to the special 60 Minutes focused on CECOT, Sharyn Alfonsi interviewed Luis Munoz Pinto - a former detainee of the El Salvador prison. Pinto recalled his time at the facility, saying:

    "The torture was never-ending. Interminable. There was blood everywhere, screams, people crying, people who couldn’t take it and were urinating or vomiting on themselves."

    Alfonsi didn't appear to be siding with Weiss in her decision to pull the CECOT episode, and wrote an email to CBS colleagues expressing her dissatisfaction. The email (later obtained by the Wall Street Journal) read:

    "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."

    Alfonsi also warned the network that pulling the story "without a credible explanation" would be recognized by the masses as "corporate censorship". 

    TOPICS: 60 Minutes, CECOT


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