{"id":205912,"date":"2025-12-22T23:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T23:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/205912\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T23:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T23:37:08","slug":"bari-weiss-cbs-news-gaffes-pile-up-as-paramount-tries-to-woo-warner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/205912\/","title":{"rendered":"Bari Weiss’ CBS News Gaffes Pile Up as Paramount Tries to Woo Warner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCBS News<\/a> is increasingly looking like something out of a scripted drama by Aaron Sorkin.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn shows like \u201cThe Newsroom\u201d and \u201cSports Night,\u201d the well-regarded writer sketched stories of feisty media outlets just trying to get news to the people, even though doing so sometimes brought unwanted scrutiny that could reflect poorly on their corporate parents while they were enmeshed in deal making, or just trying to keep revenue flowing. <\/p>\n

\n\tFictional media titans like Continental Corp. and Atlantis World Media, however, have nothing on the current antics taking place at CBS News and its owner, Paramount Skydance<\/a>. The media conglomerate, recently put under the aegis of CEO David Ellison, in October placed CBS News under the editorial supervision of Bari Weiss<\/a>, a digital provocateur whose opinion site, The Free Press, had at the time cultivated just 170,000 paid subscribers. A spate of unforced errors by Weiss has kept scrutiny high on CBS News \u2014 and not for its shows or reportage.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest gaffe unfolded over the weekend,<\/a> when CBS News revealed that a \u201c60 Minutes<\/a>\u201d segment reported by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi and centered on the on-screen accounts of Venezuelan men deported by the U.S. to prison in El Salvador had been shelved just hours before Sunday\u2019s broadcast. As disclosed by an email sent to colleagues by Alfonsi, the decision was made by Weiss, who insisted that Trump officials appear in the report to comment on camera, even though Alfonsi\u2019s team had made good faith efforts to secure response ahead of filing the report for legal review. \u201cThe public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship,\u201d Alfonsi said in her memo.<\/p>\n

\n\t CBS News staffers find the decisions made over the past few days \u201cdistressing\u201d and \u201cominous,\u201d according to two people familiar with the newsroom. Remarks made Monday by Weiss at CBS News\u2019 daily editorial meeting did little to reassure. \u201cThe only newsroom I\u2019m interested in is one in which we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest editorial matters with respect, and, crucially, where we assume the best intent of our colleagues,\u201d she said. \u201cAnything else is absolutely unacceptable.\u201d She did not explain why she waited until after the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d segment was publicized before taking concrete action. \u201cOur viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cThat\u2019s my north star and I hope it\u2019s yours too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount can ill afford negative scrutiny in this current moment. The company, backed by the Ellison family, is trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, even though that conglomerate\u2019s board has already struck a deal to sell its studio and streaming assets to Netflix. One of Paramount\u2019s talking points is that it will serve as a good home for Warner\u2019s CNN, a news outlet with a storied brand but a troubled business outlook. Every time Weiss blunders, it raises a cloud over Paramount\u2019s ability to steady media properties. amid a difficult operating climate \u2014 and, more critically, help them flourish.<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS News declined to make executives available for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeiss\u2019 motivations may have been in earnest. To be sure, every piece of journalism can probably be improved ahead of its publication. Still, the process was allowed to continue so that the segment to be promoted via CBS News\u2019 publicity team, and the segment had passed multiple reviews by standards and practices, according to people familiar with the situation.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd that\u2019s not just because of the strange decision-making timeline. CBS News and \u201c60 Minutes\u201d have been under a microscope for months, with previous Paramount management agreeing to pay a $16 million settlemen<\/a>t to rid the company of flimsy legal charges that the show cast former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in a more favorable light than now-President Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 election. Paramount\u2019s decision undermined the newsmagazine\u2019s credibility. Recent decisions by Paramount\u2019s new management have only exacerbated the situation, and Weiss\u2019 is likely to further wear away at its journalism bona fides.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is some portion of CBS News staffers who believe \u201c60 Minutes\u201d could use a kick in the rear, according to two people familiar with the newsroom. This contingent would like to see \u201c60 Minutes\u201d gain back some of the swashbuckling mien it displayed when Mike Wallace led tough-nosed investigative segments, and the program wasn\u2019t weakened by a corporate decision in 1995 to spike a whistleblower\u2019s report on the tobacco company Brown & Williamson\u2019s efforts to hide the health risks of cigarettes.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeiss\u2019 moves this week do nothing to help \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d and more to hurt it. Her decision is the latest in a series of bull-in-a-China-shop maneuvers that have alienated staff and raised more questions than answers about where she wants to lead CBS News. <\/p>\n

\n\tWeiss has attracted unwanted attention from the outset, mainly because she has no experience running a large media asset and her skill set is tied to the formulation of commentary around the news, rather than the gathering of facts that typically sits at the center of the process. Since her arrival, she has brought pushback from the union representing CBS News staffers after asking them to lay out their job duties; nabbed conservative newsmakers and Trump administration officials for various segments for broadcast and online programming; tried to hire big-name anchors by enticing them to leave their current contracts at rival operations; and launched a new series of town halls and debates by moderating a session with conservative activist Erika Kirk that lacked support from mainstream advertisers<\/a>. Bank of America has signed on as a sponsor<\/a> for future editions of the series, now dubbed \u201cThings That Matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWeiss has good reason to seek a shake-up at CBS News. The news division\u2019s morning and evening programs have long run in third place behind rivals at ABC and NBC. CBS is overhauling \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d for example \u2014 yet again \u2014 after the most recent two-anchor format caused thousands of viewers to ditch the show. Tony Dokoupil launches his tenure on the program in early January.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tTwo people familiar with her recent work say Weiss is tireless and may even have ambitions beyond the news division. Still, she has yet to forge a clear alliance with the people for whom she is responsible. She has yet to demonstrate a real feel for the job she has at hand. And with statements such as \u201cWe live in a time in which many people have lost trust in the media\u201d \u2014 made while announcing Dokoupil\u2019s hire \u2014 she may have to work a lot harder to accomplish those goals. Meanwhile, her lengthening series of missteps cast fog around Paramount management\u2019s ability to run media properties with any degree of success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CBS News is increasingly looking like something out of a scripted drama by Aaron Sorkin. In shows like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[108050,71729,9488,93,61,60,65249,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-205912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-60-minutes","9":"tag-bari-weiss","10":"tag-cbs-news","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-paramount-skydance","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}