On Tuesday’s broadcast of WBUR’s “Here and Now,” NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik stated that it’s difficult to tell if “60 Minutes” gave Trump administration officials enough of a chance to defend their actions in a segment on the CECOT prison, but “the real problem, in terms of the question of good faith, is that Bari Weiss did so so late in the game. Is that the sort of thing that the editor-in-chief should be weighing in on 36 hours before broadcast?” And “this looks like a new leader coming in, wanting things to be done in a different way, not understanding the rhythms and the mores, entirely, of the franchise, the valuable franchise that she’s seeking to reshape.”
Folkenflik said that “It’s a little hard for me to evaluate” if the Trump administration was given enough opportunity to defend themselves in the story. He continued, “Certainly, Sharyn Alfonsi, the correspondent on the segment, as you alluded to, in an email that she circulated to colleagues 38 minutes after the show announced that her segment would not be running Sunday night, said that she had reached out to Homeland Security, to the Department of State, to the White House, to try to get people, and that they had said no comment, and that, as a result, Bari Weiss was effectively handing a veto or a kill decision over to the White House. I will say, this morning, Axios’ Sara Fischer reports, and I find her reporting over time to be credible, that there were actually comments from those agencies, and that it was a little surprising, in effect, that they were not incorporated. We don’t know what the text of those comments are. I think the real problem, in terms of the question of good faith, is that Bari Weiss did so so late in the game. Is that the sort of thing that the editor-in-chief should be weighing in on 36 hours before broadcast?”
Folkenflik added that there is “corporate and political context” that is hard to get away from, “even if, at its heart, this looks like a new leader coming in, wanting things to be done in a different way, not understanding the rhythms and the mores, entirely, of the franchise, the valuable franchise that she’s seeking to reshape.”
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