Why a story about the Wilmington massacre didn’t air on CBS17 this weekend
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Technical difficulties at CBS17 prevented it from airing the first 45 minutes.
- The segment examined the 1898 Wilmington massacre and white supremacist violence.
- CBS17 posted the story online and apologized after joining the program in progress.
Portions of CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” programming, including a featured story on white supremacists overthrowing the government in Wilmington, didn’t air in the Triangle this weekend.
The featured segment of “Sunday Morning,” the national television news show, focused on the Wilmington massacre, where white supremacists incited violence, killing dozens of Black people and forcing hundreds to flee what was North Carolina’s largest city 100 years ago in the aftermath of the 1898 elections.
“Due to technical difficulties within WNCN, we were unable to air the first 45 minutes of CBS ‘Sunday Morning’ with Jane Pauley,” according to a story on CBS17’s website. “Once the problem was fixed, we joined the show in progress. We understand there was high interest in the story about the Wilmington Coup — you can watch the story here. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Some CBS viewers went on social media specifically worried about censorship of the Wilmington massacre segment, with some pointing to when CBS17’s parent company, Nexstar, temporarily pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last year after the comedian’s comments about Charlie Kirk or Nexstar’s conservative leanings.
Derek Rowles, news director for CBS17, pointed to the story on CBS17’s website and referred other questions to general manager John Lewis, who has not responded to an email as of noon Monday.
Wilmington massacre
During the insurrection, Wilmington’s leadership, which included Black and white members, resigned and an African American newsroom was burned to the ground. Those actions were all unpunished by state or federal leaders entrenching decades of Jim Crow policies that kept white people in power, The News & Observer reported.
Ahead of the 1898 elections, The News & Observer and its publisher, Josephus Daniels, published racist articles and political cartoons to advance a white supremacist agenda. In 2006, The N&O published a 16-page special section, titled “The Ghosts of 1898,” and apologized for its role in the coup.
The CBS News feature coincides with the publication of “They Stole a City,” written by New Yorker journalist Lauren Collins.
This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 1:36 PM.
