Is CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss censoring critical coverage of the Trump administration to please the network’s billionaire backers and the president himself?

It’s the crisis many have anticipated since Weiss — a center-right provocateur known for her outspoken criticism of “wokeness” and support for Israel — was appointed atop CBS News in October. And now it’s here.

On Sunday, 60 Minutes was set to air a report on conditions in El Salvador’s CECOT prison, where the Trump administration has sent migrants. But Saturday night, Weiss intervened to spike the story, declaring it was not “ready” for publication.

A flurry of leaks then ensued, including an internal email from Sharyn Alfonsi, a correspondent on the story. Alfonsi asserted it had been fully reviewed and approved by the network’s standards and legal team, and that Weiss’s move was therefore “political,” “a betrayal,” and “corporate censorship.”

Weiss’s own internal explanation then leaked: She insisted both that there was not enough new in the report and insisted it should include Trump officials giving an on-camera interview. “I look forward to airing this important piece when it’s ready,” she told the New York Times in a statement. Other criticisms she’d made internally about the piece were later leaked to Axios, and they boiled down to: not enough was done to explain the administration’s point of view.

Behind Weiss’s move, her critics suspect, is an effort to please Larry and David Ellison, the father-and-son billionaires who helped purchase CBS’s parent company, Paramount, earlier this year. The Ellisons subsequently bought Weiss’s publication, the Free Press, making her very rich, and installed her........

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