Fired “60 Minutes” correspondent Cecilia Vega accused CBS News management of trying to inject misinformation and political talking points into three of her reports before Bari Weiss ousted her from the storied newsmagazine.
Vega, the first Latina correspondent on “60 Minutes,” broke her silence Thursday during an appearance at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Conference & Expo in New Orleans, describing the “the stitches” from her May firing as “still fresh.”
She told ABC News correspondent John Quiñones that she was “scared to be talking” about her experience but felt compelled to speak publicly, according to the Status newsletter.
“It’s not that I just lost a job. There is a lot at stake,” Vega said. “Sometimes you got to be scared and do it still.”
Vega detailed three episodes in which she said the “new administration at CBS News” pushed changes that she believed were rooted in politics or false information.
She did not directly identify Weiss as the person behind the requests. But Vega said the culture changed when new executives began attending screenings and offering feedback on “60 Minutes” pieces.
Weiss has cleaned house at “60 Minutes” since taking control of CBS News, firing executive producer Tanya Simon, correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Vega, senior executive producer Draggan Mihailovich, veteran producer Guy Campanile and digital operations chief Matthew Polevoy.
Veteran correspondent Scott Pelley was later ousted after confronting Weiss and newly installed executive producer Nick Bilton during a staff meeting.
According to Vega, the first dispute involved a report produced after the fatal shootings of Rene Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
Vega said her team was encouraged to include footage showing protesters violently attacking people they believed were Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working in plain clothes.
Her team could find “no credible examples” of such attacks at the time, she said.
Vega also said management wanted the report to include a purported exchange from a press conference in which Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey allegedly said he wanted local police to fight federal ICE agents in the streets to stop immigration enforcement.
The city’s police chief was said to have rolled his eyes at the suggestion.
Vega said her team reviewed the entire press conference and found no evidence that the exchange ever occurred.
“That never happened,” she said. “We could not find any instance of the mayor saying something like that.”
Vega characterized the claim as “misinformation.”
A second clash erupted over a report about President Trump’s war with Iran roughly three weeks into the conflict.
Vega said she was instructed to open the piece with the line: “Who is winning the war? Iran is totally outgunned by the United States and Israel.”
She called that wording an “administration talking point” used by the White House to argue that the US was prevailing.
The third dispute involved a report about cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits and poverty in West Virginia.
Vega said her team deliberately decided to tell the story “through the voices of strictly residents,” avoiding interviews with politicians and outside experts.
She said management then questioned why the report did not include Vice President JD Vance or an expert who could discuss his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Vega noted that the book had been published about a decade earlier and focused on Vance’s upbringing in Ohio, not West Virginia.
None of the disputed suggestions made it into the finished broadcasts, Vega said.
“If you watch my pieces, you’d see those examples did not make them in,” she told the audience, drawing loud and sustained applause, according to Status.
Vega said “60 Minutes” had historically operated as an “island” protected by a “moat” from direct intervention by the broader CBS News operation.
That changed, she said, when new executives began appearing in screenings and challenging her reporting.
She described a “real tension” during those sessions “that made me nervous” and said she sensed the new leadership “were not liking this back and forth.”
Vega said she never met one-on-one with Weiss and still has not been told why she was fired.
“I don’t know why I was fired,” she said. “It’s been about three months now … and I don’t know. I was not given a reason. I still have not been given a reason.”
Vega had previously accused the Weiss-led management team of trying to “insert political bias” into her work but had not publicly provided examples.
Vega said she had spent her career disagreeing with editors and fighting over stories but believed her final months at “60 Minutes” were fundamentally different.
“Never in my career until now have I felt that those edits, those suggestions, came from a place of misinformation or politics,” she said. “That’s the difference.”
CBS News declined to comment to Status about Vega’s latest accusations. The Post has sought comment from CBS News.
The network has previously said her claims were “not based in reality” and has denied inserting political bias into its reporting.
Weiss has defended her involvement in newsroom decisions as a normal part of running CBS News.
“What’s being called ‘editorial interference’ is in reality the job description of an editor in chief,” Weiss told The Wall Street Journal in June.