By Justin Baragona, reposted from Zeteo, June 10, 2026
One of the stories that Cecilia Vega had lined up for the upcoming season of ‘60 Minutes’ when she was unceremoniously fired by Bari Weiss, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, was a profile on Francesca Albanese – the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The story, which had been approved by the show’s then-senior leadership this spring, was still in its early stages at the time of Vega’s termination, and the correspondent had yet to sit down with Albanese for an interview – which was scheduled for the end of this month.
In recent weeks, the segment’s production staff and writers had already conducted background reporting on the UN official and met with Albanese in Rome and Genoa to film b-roll footage for the story. The program was also in the middle of setting up Vega’s shoot with Albanese, only for that to be postponed indefinitely following the “Black Thursday” firings at ‘60 Minutes’ late last month.
“Yes, she was working on a profile of me for ‘60 Minutes,’” Albanese told Zeteo when reached for comment. “In May, her crew traveled to two different locations to follow my work, and we had two additional segments planned: an interview in Tunis, where I live, and another piece before I present my report to the UN General Assembly.”
As of now, according to network sources, the story is on hold since there is no correspondent currently assigned to it following Vega’s dismissal. There are several other stories that were meant for Vega that are also now in limbo.
Albanese has found herself on the receiving end of withering criticism from the Israeli government, the Trump administration, and supporters of Israel for documenting the genocide in Gaza and advocating for legal action against Israel. The U.S. government imposed sanctions on her last year, which a federal judge found violated her First Amendment rights. While she was briefly removed from the sanctions list following that decision, the Trump administration added her back after an appeals court issued an administrative stay on the lower court’s ruling.
I have learned that one of the subjects Vega was interested in exploring with Albanese was how the sanctions have impacted her and her family’s lives, especially that of the UN expert’s eldest daughter, who is an American citizen.
Weiss – an avowed “Zionist fanatic” – has also used her anti-woke, pro-Israel site The Free Press to take aim at the official.
In an editorial last fall, The Free Press’s editors dismissed a scholar association’s resolution accusing Israel of genocide because one of its sources was Albanese, who they claimed was “discredited,” saying it was “another reason not to trust the ‘experts.’”
So it’s fair then to raise an obvious question – did this upcoming story about a loud and vocal critic of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians play a part in Vega’s dismissal?
Vega and representatives for CBS did not respond to requests for comment.
Vega said in a memo after her termination that she and her producing teams had “experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories.” She added that the show’s reporters had “held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions.”
Amid the “shitshow” engulfing ‘60 Minutes’ over the mass firing of the show’s senior management and several correspondents, Vega’s termination has been the one that has left many scratching their heads. Not only was she the youngest of the show’s seasoned reporters, having just joined in 2023 from ABC News, but her contract wasn’t due to expire until March 2027.
Yet, while Sharyn Alfonsi had long been expected to be let go due to her public run-ins with Weiss over the “Inside CECOT” story, and Scott Pelley was fired following his heated confrontation with Weiss’s handpicked new ‘60 Minutes’ boss Nick Bilton, a target may have been placed on Vega’s back even before Weiss was hired.
Months before David Ellison closed his merger with Paramount and eventually installed Weiss as CBS News’s chief editor, a ‘60 Minutes’ story by Vega over the way the Biden administration was handling the war in Gaza sparked loud complaints from not only the Anti-Defamation League and other pro-Israel groups, but also Shari Redstone – the company’s then-owner and a passionate supporter of Israeli causes.
That January 2025 story, which centered on ex-State officials resigning in protest over the U.S. policy in Gaza, prompted Redstone to demand immediate action – eventually leading to the resignations of top CBS News leaders over concerns of corporate interference. This came as ‘60 Minutes’ was already under intense pressure due to Trump’s meritless lawsuit. (We know how that ended.)
With the Ellisons and Weiss also being extremely fervent supporters of Israel, network staffers and insiders I’ve spoken to have openly wondered if that Gaza war story was the impetus behind Vega’s firing.
Since arriving at the network last fall, many of Weiss’s personnel and programming decisions have at least appeared to be based on pro-Israel sentiment. Whether it’s making Tony Dokoupil the face of ‘CBS Evening News,’ hiring an Israeli-flag-waving correspondent, firing a well-respected bureau chief for supposedly running her office like a “Hamas cell,” laying off the network’s leading Gaza reporter after Mike Huckabee complained about her, or allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to choose which reporter interviews him, critics have ample evidence to accuse her of pushing an Israel First agenda at CBS.
At the same time, there could be another reason Weiss targeted Vega, at least according to one senior CBS News staffer.
“If you look at The Free Press, or if you look at any of Bari’s own thoughts on it, she would just look at Cecilia Vega as some DEI hire and not as an extraordinarily talented journalist who rose through the ranks at ABC News and hit the highest heights of America’s number one legacy news network and who is so good, she was recognized by ‘60 Minutes,’ which is the number one news broadcast show,” the staffer said.
“Cecilia is extraordinarily gifted, talented, and qualified, and so I just feel like, as well as whatever her perception of her potentially being pro-Palestinian, or whatever it is, I also think the bigger issue is that Bari just doesn’t think women of color deserve to be in those spaces,” the staffer added.
While we may never fully know why Vega was let go, we will keep an eye on ‘60 Minutes’ this upcoming season to see if the Albanese profile makes it to air.
Promises, Promises, Promises
Days after Bilton vowed to protect the show from corporate interference in a conciliatory memo, prompting the program’s last remaining correspondents to stick around, Lesley Stahl revealed to ‘60 Minutes’ staffers – during a champagne toast meant to boost morale – that Ellison promised her he’d respect the editorial independence of the iconic newsmagazine while apologizing for all the recent turmoil.
Of course, folks at CBS News have heard this before from Ellison. He made that exact promise in August after he fully took over Paramount, only to immediately install a pro-Trump ombudsman and foist Weiss on the network, leading the staff to quickly lose trust in him.
Still, whether he’s being genuine or not, it’s apparent that Ellison realizes just how much of a fire-alarm fire Weiss started with her haphazard overhaul of ‘60 Minutes,’ which has only led to wall-to-wall negative headlines – like Pelley telling the New York Times that Weiss is incompetent and putting her thumb on the scale for Trump. Or Alfonsi and Vega joining Pelley in accusing Weiss of editorial interference and trying to inject political bias into their stories.
According to Status’s Oliver Darcy, Weiss has been holed up in a secure bunker within CBS headquarters while Ellison and other Paramount bigwigs look to clean up the mess she created. All the while, rumors continue to swirl that, with the Warner Bros. deal fast approaching, Paramount brass is looking to find a veteran media executive to share the duties of running a combined CNN-CBS News with Weiss.
However, the rub – at least based on the media spin coming out of Paramount – is that Ellison wants Weiss to maintain editorial and creative control while having another person handle the business-side operations. What seasoned executive in their right mind would cede editorial duties to someone who has done nothing but spark dumpster fires these past eight months?
Ratings on a Leash
‘Comics Unleashed,’ the low-budget comic talk show that replaced Stephen Colbert’s ‘The Late Show’ on CBS’s late-night schedule, is actively repelling viewers after just two weeks in its new time slot.
According to Nielsen data, the program – which has been around in syndication for over 20 years – averaged just 764,000 total viewers and 114,000 in the key 25-54 advertising demographic last week. This is down from the previous week, which saw ‘Comics Unleashed’ draw a nightly average of 849,000 viewers.
Comparatively, ‘The Late Show’ averaged 2.7 million viewers a night during its final season, and pulled in a massive audience of 6.7 million for its finale – which came months after Paramount canceled the long-running franchise.
While the company said it axed the MAGA-skewering Colbert’s show “purely for financial reasons” and alleged the top-rated program lost $40 million annually, Ellison’s merger with Paramount was approved by the Trump administration just days after the cancellation was announced.
Byron Allen, the host and producer of ‘Comics Unleashed,’ appears to be unfazed by the show’s terrible ratings. The stand-up comic turned mogul, whose media company owns the program, is paying Paramount $15 million to run the show during Colbert’s airtime in exchange for advertising revenue.
“CBS has won big-time because they have zero production costs and now they are saving $55 million a year,” he told the Los Angeles Times this week.
Fox Goes Full North Korea on Trump Boos
Leave it to Trump’s favorite morning show to obediently tell its Dear Leader that the Knicks fans were actually shouting “Boo-urns” when they showered the president with jeers during his Madison Square Garden appearance at Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
After Fox’s social media channels told its followers the crowd chanted “USA!” with “President Trump in attendance,” and its digital outlet merely reported that the arena reacted “to Trump far differently than college football fans,” ‘Fox & Friends’ got right to work on Tuesday morning.
With a chyron blaring “Trump Gets Mixed Reception From Fans,” Brian Kilmeade – a member of Trump’s ‘Fox News Cabinet’ – insisted that the president “did get a good response” while comparing the crowd’s reaction to a Mike Tyson fight.
“I would say it was mixed,” Kilmeade proclaimed to viewers – and one in particular. “There were people cheering. I’ll challenge anybody on that – I was sitting right there.”
As if the North Korea vibes weren’t already on the nose, ‘Fox & Friends’ even did a segment on how the “aggressive rhetoric” coming from Kim Jong Un has quieted down, thanks to Donald Trump – only to then jump directly into a discussion about the Knicks game.
Justin Baragona is Zeteo’s media columnist. He is a former senior media reporter for The Daily Beast & a correspondent for Mediaite.
RELATED:
- Bari Weiss, Free-Speech Fraud & Zionism Promoter, Would Rather Deport Than Debate
- Israel to Bari Weiss: ‘Thank You’ for whitewashing our war crimes
- Bari Weiss ‘Meddles’ With ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ Story on Palestine
- How Tony Dokoupil Became the Face of ‘Zionist Fanatic’ Bari Weiss’s CBS
- Is America Truly Becoming a “Zionocracy?”
