Bari Weiss Set for the role of Top CBS News while Paramount near the free press purchase
Paramount is about to acquire the free press organization of the right press of Bari Weiss, with Weiss for a leading role in the management of CBS News, learned Thewrap.
The agreement, which is finalized by Paramount lawyers and was reported on Wednesday by Puck for the first time, defines CBS News on a course for a more conservative approach in accordance with the vision of CEO David Ellison. Thewrap reports suggest that it is likely that Weiss directs CBS News.
Weiss, who founded Free Press in 2022 after leaving the New York Times where she was an opinion columnist, is respected by some for her independent approach and her criticism of the traditional media as too awake, but criticized by others for having given a pass for powerful people with whom she agrees like Elon Musk when he bought Twitter in 2022 and Peter Theiel who interviewed His podcast declined the non-allans.
Paramount refused to comment. Weiss did not respond to the request for Thewrap comments.
CBS News has been the subject of a political showdown and a target of the Trump administration, which extracted a settlement of $ 16 million from a trial on an “60 -minute” interview with Kamala Harris. As part of the Skydance merger, Paramount agreed to place an internal mediator to ensure that the press organization was impartial within the framework of its negotiations with the Trump administration.
In one of his first movements after taking control of Paramount, leadership led by Ellison eliminated Dei’s initiatives in Paramount.
CBS News has long been one of the most respected brands in journalism, with veterans from Walter Cronkite to Edward R. Murrow as part of the estimated heritage of the network. A stable of star journalists at “60 minutes” includes Anderson Cooper, Bill Whitaker and Lesley Stahl, among others.
As a journalist who comes from the columns of opinion rather than the trenches of the collection of news, Weiss is sure to raise the opposition in the ranks of the editorial room of CBS News as a leading decision -maker, in particular following the departure of the venerated executive producer of “60 minutes” Bill Owens and the head of CBS News Wendy McMahon, both news as reason for their reason for their reason.
A person who knows the agreement said that Paramount expected that there are resignations following the acquisition of Weiss.
Weiss was reported as looking for $ 200 million for the sale of the free press, but the person with knowledge said that the sale price should be less than it.
Weiss resigned from the New York Times in July 2020, quoting what she described as a working environment hostile to ideological diversity. In her letter of resignation, which she published publicly, Weiss accused the newspaper of having favored an “illiberal environment” where dissident opinions have met with open hostility of colleagues. She said that she had been subjected to intimidation, both in person and on internal roundabouts, and allegedly alleged that the editorial decisions of the editorial hall were increasingly shaped by Twitter and the opinions of her most vocal online criticisms, rather than by journalistic independence.
She then founded the Free Press, which quickly became a robust media platform that constantly criticizes cultural and social opinions on the left. It is considered a successful response to the progressive media and traditional outlets that lean on the left. The site constantly publishes pro-Israeli writers and also presents journalists who abandon the consumer media, such as Ari Berliner, a former editor-in-chief of companies for NPR who left an alleged left of the left.
In a test in 2024, Berliner argued that NPR had gone from an “curious and curious curious culture” to that dominated by a progressive vision of the world – affirming that a lack of various points of view had undermined the confidence of the public in the point of sale.
