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This week, we learned another lesson about how corporate media consolidation corrupts democracy. A story on President Donald Trump's mass deportation of shackled Venezuelan men to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison was to air on CBS' flagship news magazine "60 Minutes." The segment was spiked by CBS News' newly-installed Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. This censorship exposes a web of conflicts of interest, and demonstrates, yet again, that democracy depends on a strong, independent media that is a true fourth estate, not "for the state."

CECOT, or "Terrorism Confinement Center," is a prison in El Salvador built in 2022 as part of President Nayib Bukele's alleged crackdown on gang violence. Bukele, who calls himself "the coolest dictator in the world," is an authoritarian, using mass imprisonment and torture at CECOT as one tool to exert control. Trump, who loves strongmen who praise him, is a great admirer of Bukele.

The Trump administration agreed to pay El Salvador close to $5 million to imprison people deported from the U.S. As early as March, prisoners were secretly flown to CECOT by the Department of Homeland Security, in violation of a federal court order. Among them was the illegally deported Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and at least 252 Venezuelan men. Many of the Venezuelans were ultimately sent back to their home country in exchange for the Venezuelan government's release of 10 U.S. prisoners. Much of what we know about CECOT comes from the eyewitness testimony of these men, and from evidence gathered by human rights researchers.

The spiked "60 Minutes" piece had already been sent to Canada, where it runs weekly, and aired there as scheduled. A recording quickly became available online and went viral.

It opens with correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi:

"It began as soon as the planes landed. The deportees thought they were headed from the U.S. back to Venezuela. But instead, they were shackled, paraded in front of cameras and delivered to CECOT, the notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador, where they told '60 Minutes' they endured four months of hell.

"Did you think you were going to die there?"

Luis Munoz Pinto: "We thought we were already the living dead, honestly."

So why did Bari Weiss kill the story? She reportedly claimed the story needed more voices from the Trump administration, yet Alfonsi and her colleagues had already requested comment from the White House, the State Department and Homeland Security. In an internal email, Alfonsi wrote, "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."

Recall, Trump sued CBS over a "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris, which he claimed was selectively edited to help her campaign. While legal experts say CBS would have easily won that case, CBS' parent company, Paramount, was hoping to be bought by Skydance Media, owned by the son of billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison. So Paramount settled with Trump for $15 million. The merger was then approved by the Trump administration.

Shortly thereafter, the Ellisons bought Bari Weiss' right-wing news website for $150 million, then installed her as Editor-in-Chief of CBS News.

Larry Ellison and his son David now want to add to their media empire, attempting to acquire Warner Brothers/Discovery in a hostile takeover. Warner Brothers/Discovery, which owns HBO and CNN among other media properties, rebuffed the Ellisons' bid in favor of a competing offer from Netflix (that bid does not include HBO or CNN).

Neither merger is in the public interest, as fewer and fewer media giants gobble up more and more, restricting consumer choice and the power of creators -- writers, actors, directors, etc. -- to demand fair treatment. Trump has said he intends to intervene, and could wield the government's regulatory authority -- corruptly -- to favor one buyer over the other.

So, both Netflix and the Ellisons' Paramount/Skydance have an interest in currying favor with Trump.

And therein lies the reason why CBS, owned by Paramount/Skydance, spiked an important "60 Minutes" story of the U.S. deporting innocent men to a foreign black site, to be tortured.

"One of the first tenets of ethics in journalism is to seek truth and report it," Alexa Koenig of the Human Rights Center at University of California, Berkeley, said on the Democracy Now! news hour. She was interviewed by "60 Minutes" about the center's research on torture and other abuses at CECOT. "This is a big moment for American politics, for getting facts and truth out to the public about what has been done in their name, what is being done with taxpayer dollars."

News organizations cannot function under corrupt corporate control, answering to billionaire bosses and politicians. When that happens, democracy dies, and dictators rise.

We need, and the public must demand, a truly independent media.

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Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,400 stations. She is the co-author, with Denis Moynihan and David Goodman, of the New York Times best-seller "Democracy Now!: 20 Years Covering the Movements Changing America."

(c) 2025 Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Distributed by King Features Syndicate