A major shakeup at 60 Minutes is ongoing with two journalists confirmed not to be returning. Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi are out.
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Taking to social media in an Instagram post, Vega revealed that CBS fired her from 60 Minutes, breaking her contract.
"In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories," Vega wrote in part. "Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions. Let's call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven. It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy."
Earlier this week, CBS fired executive producer Tanya Simon, replacing her with Nick Bilton.
'60 Minutes' Shakeup
"My time as Executive Producer of 60 Minutes and at CBS News is coming to an end," Simon wrote. "While leadership has decided it is time for a new chapter - I want to be unequivocally clear about one thing: it has been an immense privilege to lead this broadcast, and I could not be prouder of what we have built, fought for, and delivered together over the last year. 60 Minutes has always been more than just a broadcast: it is an institution built on independence, grit, [and rigorous] search for the truth. That is work we did together - and with ratings up 9% over last year no less. You should all be proud."
"I am leaving with tremendous respect for the outstanding journalism you strive to maintain every day," she concluded.
Meanwhile, Alfonsi was also fired from 60 Minutes as well. She believes that her firing may be politically motivated.
"It sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom," she said. "I think it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting."
Whatever the case, it's the end of the road for these three at the show. How these firings will affect the programming remains to be seen. Even Anderson Cooper is also out for the program it would seem as well.
