On the heels of Paramount’s acquisition of Bari Weiss’ The Free Press, CEO David Ellison said the values of the outlet are aligned with Paramount to “get back into the trust business.”
“If you look at the value system that … The Free Press has been operated under, [it] really does align with the value system that we believe in, which I also believe is in line with the legacy of CBS News,” Ellison said Thursday at Bloomberg’s annual Screentime conference in Los Angeles.
With civil discourse “not in great place,” Ellison noted that the outlet “recognized some of the issues that have been occurring and built a company as part of the solution.” “We want to get back into the trust business,” he said. “We want to get back into the truth business.”
Ellison noted the acquisition is a step forward to becoming “the most trusted destination in news media,” adding that CBS News aims to speak to “the 70% of the audience that identifies themselves as center left to center right.”
“We believe in the open exchange of ideas, and then fundamentally presenting both sides and allowing the audience to ultimately make their determination about how they feel about it … but they’re presented with the facts,” he said.
When pressed about concerns regarding Weiss’ background as an opinion columnist rather than a news reporter as she steps in CBS News’ editor-in-chief, Ellison dodged the question, saying “I’m not going to make a political statement.” “This is going to be one where we’re going to need to demonstrate every single day that we’re obviously earning people’s trust,” he said.
Ellison added the acquisition was crucial to bolstering CBS’ news digital strategy, which he said currently does not exist. “When you talk about meeting people where they are, that’s in broadcast news, that’s … on The Free Press’ website, that’s in podcast, but that’s also eventually going to be in direct-to-consumer,” he said noting that CBS’ news competitors are not currently working on DTC platforms.
While Ellison confirmed that CBS News already has a digital news network, he said the acquisition of The Free Press will “accelerate and supercharge” it.
