{"id":282089,"date":"2025-10-06T16:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T16:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/282089\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T16:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T16:46:12","slug":"bari-weiss-is-new-eic-of-cbs-news-after-paramount-buys-the-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/282089\/","title":{"rendered":"Bari Weiss is new EIC of CBS News after Paramount buys The Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Paramount said Monday that it has bought the news and commentary website The Free Press and installed its founder, Bari Weiss, as the editor-in-chief of CBS News<\/a>, saying it believes the country longs for news that is balanced and fact-based.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bold step for the television network of Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d long viewed by many conservatives as the personification of a liberal media establishment. The network is placing someone in a leadership who has developed a reputation for resisting orthodoxy and fighting \u201cwoke\u201d culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News,\u201d said David Ellison, who took over this summer as the corporate leader overseeing the network when his company, Skydance, purchased Paramount<\/a>. \u201cThis move is part of Paramount\u2019s bigger vision to modernize content and the way it connects \u2014 directly and passionately \u2014 to audiences around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

No purchase price was announced for The Free Press, which has grown to reach 1.5 million subscribers since Weiss started it after leaving The New York Times<\/a> as an opinion editor. When she left the Times, she wrote a letter of resignation that spoke of a culture of intolerance at the newspaper and said she was bullied by colleagues who disagreed with her.<\/p>\n

Weiss will report directly to Ellison and partner with the current CBS News President Tom Cibrowski, who reports to Paramount executive George Cheeks.<\/p>\n

Editor-in-chief is a new role at CBS News. Ellison said that Weiss will \u201cshape editorial priorities, champion core values across platforms and lead innovation in how the organization reports and delivers the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter to CBS News employees on Monday, Weiss said that watching CBS was part of a family tradition growing up in Pittsburgh. Her goal in the next few weeks is to get to know the staff, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to hear from you about what\u2019s working, what isn\u2019t, and your thoughts on how we can make CBS News the most trusted news organization in America and the world,\u201d Weiss wrote. \u201cI\u2019ll approach it the way any reporters would \u2014 with an open mind, a fresh notebook and an urgent deadline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some at CBS News have been concerned about what they see as signs that the news division is moving in a direction more friendly to President Donald Trump. Paramount\u2019s merger<\/a> with Skydance was approved by the administration shortly after Paramount settled the president\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> against \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d Ellison has hired Kenneth Weinstein, former head of a conservative think tank and a Trump contributor, as an ombudsman<\/a> to examine complaints about CBS News.<\/p>\n

\u201c60 Minutes,\u201d which is two weeks into its new season, has been seeking an interview with Trump.<\/p>\n

Rather, who stepped down as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News in 2005, told The Associated Press on Monday that he did not know Weiss and hopes she gets to know the people at CBS News before making any big changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one has to send a memo to everyone down the line at CBS News about what is going on with journalism and this presidency,\u201d Rather said. \u201cIt is obvious that there is tremendous pressure to bend the knee to the Trump administration. The fear is that this appointment is part of that overall play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weiss has worked in opinion journalism and has little background in broadcast journalism. She has described herself politically as a centrist and wrote a column for the New York Post in 2021 headlined, \u201c10 ways to fight back against woke culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing for the liberal website the Unpopulist, Matt Johnson said that \u201cone reason for The Free Press\u2019 popularity is that it offers intellectual reassurances to legions of anti-anti-Trump readers \u2014 sophisticated conservatives who may be uneasy about Trumpism, yet want to believe that wokeness and other left-wing excesses are the primary threats to western civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her memo to CBS News employees on Monday, Weiss said she stood for the same core journalistic values that have defined the profession from the beginning, including reporting on the world as it actually is and being fair, fearless and factual.<\/p>\n

In his own letter to Paramount employees, Ellison said that media has too often become a platform for the partisanship that is tearing society apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, that danger extends far beyond politics \u2014 threatening the very fabric of our communities,\u201d Ellison wrote. \u201cWhen we reduce every issue to \u2018us vs. them\u2019 or \u2018my way vs. the wrong way,\u2019 we close ourselves off from listening, learning and ultimately growing, both as individuals and as a society. I don\u2019t pretend to have a solution to this challenge. But I do believe we each have a responsibility to do our part.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a Pew Research Center survey taken earlier this year, 56% of Americans who are Democrats or lean Democrats say they trust CBS News, while only 23% of Republicans say the same thing. Trust in is similar across all major broadcast media outlets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Paramount said Monday that it has bought the news and commentary website The Free…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":282090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3881,64,1226,32129,69,171,15528,57,85254,51,23515,145627,145628,405,403,50,80,145626,52,89,61,145625],"class_list":{"0":"post-282089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-conservatism","11":"tag-david-ellison","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-freedom-of-the-press","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-george-cheeks","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-journalism","19":"tag-kenneth-weinstein","20":"tag-matt-johnson","21":"tag-new-york","22":"tag-new-york-city","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-tom-cibrowski","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-walter-cronkite"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115328239954765494","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}