Student Journalist Awarded by CBS Condemns Network’s Shift Right at News Emmys

Student journalist Santiago Campos condemned CBS News for its rightward shift under the network’s new management in an acceptance speech for the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship in New York City on Wednesday night.

“While I want to thank CBS News for funding this generous gift towards my education, I want to also acknowledge how the recent direction of the outlet stains the legacy of Mike Wallace, the namesake of this scholarship,” Campos said in his speech at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, to loud applause.

Campos, a high school senior in Washington, D.C., won the $10,000 scholarship for a submission on the U.S.’s immigration crackdowns, featuring a story from his own family. In 2025, Campos produced a documentary, “My Family’s Deportation Story” as a student journalist with PBS News Student Reporting Labs. He has also written about U.S. administrations’ mass deportation policies and the deportations of his family members in Teen Vogue.

“As corporate elites take hold over the very pipes through which our information flows, journalism that serves the people becomes increasingly harder to come by, yet ever more crucial. And what the people want is the truth,” Campos continued.

“So if at any time you hesitate to utter the word genocide, or remain silent in the face of blatant lies, remember to ask yourself, who is this for? I hope you choose us,” he concluded.

The award was presented by Scott Pelley, a correspondent for CBS News’s “60 Minutes” who has been critical of the network’s appointment of right-wing commentator Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief. Pelley also pointed out the work of Sharyn Alfonsi, a “60 Minutes” journalist who was in the audience.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sharyn Alfonsi claimed that CBS News was penalizing her for criticizing the changes to the agency, saying that the network had declined to renew her contract for this reason. While as of now she still works at CBS, it is as an at-will employee, and she has not been offered a contract to return for the fall season.

Alfonsi had reported and anchored the “Inside CECOT” segment of “60 Minutes” that investigated abuse in the notorious El Salvador prison to which President Donald Trump unconstitutionally deported nearly 300 migrants. Weiss, who took over as CBS News editor-in-chief in October 2025, abruptly pulled the segment in December, demanding that the piece add the Trump administration’s perspective. Alfonsi criticized Weiss’s maneuvers at the time.

In a statement on Wednesday after the network declined to renew her contract, Alfonsi wrote:

In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like ‘modernization’ and ‘restructuring’ to explain away my departure. Don’t be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom.

“Fearless, independent reporting has always been the defining standard at 60 Minutes,” she went on. “Today, CBS management is abandoning that mission, choosing access journalism over accountability and protecting power rather than scrutinizing it.”

“The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down. Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not.”

The changes at CBS News are emblematic of the right’s increasing grip on mainstream news media since Trump reentered the White House. In July 2025, the Trump administration approved a merger between Paramount, parent company for CBS News, and Skydance, which was founded by pro-Trump billionaire David Ellison. Following the merger, Ellison was appointed chief executive of the new Paramount Skydance company, and Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief of CBS News; among her first moves as head of the network were gutting its climate team and bringing in a new foreign editor more aligned with her pro-Israel agenda. Meanwhile, Trump has increasingly sought to further control the flow of information by threatening news agencies, including NBC, NPR, PBS, and local stations.