CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has asked each CBS News staffer to send her a memo by Tuesday that details their jobs and their opinions on the organization, according to Semafor. It’s a sign that she is eager to get the ball rolling on changing the news organization less than a week into her tenure.
Weiss framed the directive as a move to get to know her employees better, describing the newsroom as “a big place with functional titles and reporting structures that I’m learning.” She wrote that she was eager for staffers to share ideas in their memo for how to make CBS News “the most trusted and most consumed news source in the nation.”
“I’m not looking for a JD or words like synergy,” Weiss wrote. “I want to understand how you spend your working hours — and, ideally, what you’ve made (or are making) that you’re most proud of. I’m also interested in hearing your views on what’s working; what’s broken or substandard; and how we can be better. Please be blunt — it will help me greatly.”
The Friday request came four days after Weiss took hold of CBS News upon Paramount Global’s purchase of her website, the Free Press, for roughly $150 million. She has since toured CBS News’ New York and Washington bureaus and met with a number of its top anchors, including “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan and former “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell, according to Status.
The move is similar to one that another Weiss fan, billionaire Elon Musk, asked of federal employees earlier this year when he spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency. The government ended the practice in August.
CBS News did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
