John Oliver is certainly not a fan of Paramount’s decision to name The Free Press founder Bari Weiss as the new editor-in-chief of CBS News, and on Sunday night, he explained exactly why. The HBO host devoted the main story of “Last Week Tonight” to picking apart Weiss’ reporting track record, which he deemed “irresponsible” at best.
Oliver was quick out that Weiss has no television experience, and was never actually hired as a reporter. She made a name for herself as an opinion writer at the New York Times, and has previously said she was “an intellectual diversity hire.”
“She was apparently tasked with finding voices that the Times op ed page would never accept, which is already a big claim, given that before she got hired there, it published op eds from, and this is true, Muammar Gaddafi and Vladimir Putin,” Oliver noted. “If the Times have been around in the 15th century, I’m guessing he would have given an opinion piece to Vlad the Impaler.”
Oliver then dug in on specific stories Weiss has written. Among his first examples was an op-ed titled “We’re All Fascists Now,” in which Weiss linked out to social media posts from a well-known hoax site, which he called “embarrassing.”
“You don’t expect a Times writer to fall for online hoaxes like they’re your 75-year-old aunt on Facebook who keeps posting that message saying, ‘I hereby state that I do not give my permission to use any of my personal data or photos,’” Oliver joked.
The host then pointed out that Weiss once live-tweeted a meeting she was in and characterized it as “a civil war” between coworkers. She was promptly debunked by a fellow coworker in the same meeting.
“So to be fair, it seems Bari Weiss does have some reporting experience, specifically trying to report what was happening in a meeting, only to have her own co worker say, ‘Hey, what the f–k are you talking about?’” Oliver said.
As the story went on, Oliver pulled up several examples of stories published by The Free Press, each of which had been debunked in some way by multiple outlets doing further reporting. That said, Oliver explained he doesn’t have a problem with opinion-based outlets existing, considering that “Last Week Tonight” is one.
But, he argued, putting the founder of an opinion-based, often right-leaning outlet that insists in multiple posts that the left has gone too far on certain matters, in charge of a staple of American journalism “feels different.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone who led a pure opinion outlet, not even one that I happen to agree with, to suddenly be running CBS News,” he said. “But it is especially alarming to have someone doing it who has spent years putting out work that, in my opinion, is at best, irresponsible and at worst, deeply misleading.”
You can watch John Oliver’s full story on Bari Weiss in the video above.
