Sharyn Alfonsi

Sharyn Elizabeth Alfonsi (born June 3, 1972) is an American investigative journalist who worked as a correspondent for 60 Minutes from 2015 until CBS News did not renew her contract on May 28, 2026. She has won three Emmy Awards, the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, a Sigma Delta Chi Award, two Gracie Awards, the Ridenhour Prize for Courage, and a Writers Guild of America Award. She has reported from war zones in Iraq, Gaza, and Afghanistan, and covered major events including Hurricane Katrina and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Early life and education Alfonsi is from a large Italian family and attended high school in McLean, Virginia. She graduated with honors from the University of Mississippi in Oxford in 1994, where she was a James Love Scholar.

Career

Early career Alfonsi began her career in local news at KHBS-KHOG-TV in Fort Smith and Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1995 then WVEC-TV in Norfolk, Virginia, and KIRO-TV in Seattle, Washington, and later WBZ-TV in Boston, Massachusetts. She was hired by Dan Rather at CBS News in 2002 as a correspondent based in New York.

60 Minutes In 2015, Alfonsi made her debut appearance on 60 Minutes with an investigative story, "Storm After the Storm", about fraud after Hurricane Sandy.

Alfonsi made international news in 2020 when she was the first reporter to obtain photos from inside the jail cell of convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein and his autopsy photos, which aired on 60 Minutes. That same year, Alfonsi and her 60 Minutes producers won the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for their report On the Border examining the migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alfonsi led multiple investigations, including a 2020 report on flawed COVID-19 antibody tests and one of the earliest recorded superspreader events, aboard the cruise ship Costa Luminosa.

Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Alfonsi traveled to Kabul to cover the country's humanitarian crisis and conducted a rare interview with the Taliban's health minister. The segment featured Alfonsi's interviews with Venezuelan deportees who described torture and abuse at El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where the Trump administration had sent hundreds of migrants. In an internal memo to colleagues that was subsequently reported by multiple outlets, Alfonsi stated that the story had been "screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices" and was "factually correct." Alfonsi also stated that CBS had "a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories" and warned that the public would "correctly identify this as corporate censorship."

On May 1, 2026, Alfonsi received the Ridenhour Prize at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. During her acceptance speech, she stated: "Thank you for this award. I didn't know that the theme was hope. My hope recently has been that I still have a job. And every morning I wake up to another headline that says I've been fired." A week later, it was reported that CBS News declined to renew Alfonsi's contract, which expired at the end of the month. Alfonsi has enlisted with Bryan Freedman, an entertainment attorney and litigator, to negotiate her exit package. On May 27, Alfonsi released a statement confirming that her contract had expired on May 23, and criticizing CBS management.

Personal life Alfonsi is an avid runner and sports enthusiast. She and her husband, Matthew Eby, have two children Her speech was named by NPR as one of "The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever".