CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss laid out her vision for the network’s news division at a Tuesday town hall, using the forum to outline her approach to the opportunities and challenges ahead and promising to earn the staff’s trust amid the “tumult” of her nearly four-month tenure.
“I’m not going to stand up here today and ask for your trust. I’m going to earn it, just like we have to do with our viewers,” Weiss said, according to her prepared remarks. “What I can give you is what I’ve always tried to give my readers as a journalist: transparency, clarity, straight talk.”
The meeting took place inside “the Hub,” where the network broadcasts “CBS Evening News,” as staffers from Washington, London and elsewhere streamed the event. The conversation with Weiss was moderated by “CBS Mornings” featured host Vladimir Duthiers, while “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King also spoke, according to sources in the meeting.
Given the raft of headlines about Weiss these past few months, the town hall was an opportunity for the embattled editor to explain why she took this high-profile (and much-scrutinized) role and articulate her perspective on the media landscape — and CBS’s place in it. Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite, she noted, when CBS primarily competed against ABC and NBC; now the network is vying for attention against a “vast universe of podcasts and YouTube and Twitch and newsletters.”
Weiss’ town hall coincided with CBS News announcing 19 contributors, a wide-ranging group of voices spanning tech and lifestyle, history and economics, politics and, well, happiness. In building a new stable of prominent – and at times provocative — voices, Weiss appears to be taking a page from the Free Press, the right-leaning, contrarian news and opinion site she co-founded and sold to CBS-parent Paramount in October for $150 million.
A number of the hires announced Tuesday will be familiar to Free Press readers, including historian Niall Ferguson, social scientist and happiness authority Arthur Brooks, podcast host Coleman Hughes, and author Elliot Ackerman.
Also on board: Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, tech journalist Patrick McGee, Manhattan Institute president and conservative commentator Reihan Salam, “Abundance” co-author Derek Thompson, fashion journalist Lauren Sherman, former national security adviser HR McMaster, physics and astronomy professor Janna Levin, New York chef Clare de Boer, cookbook author Caroline Chambers, Gen-Z and Gen Alpha-focused journalist Casey Lewis, neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, Ph.D and Dr. Mark Hyman, a proponent of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Weiss said that her goal is to “make CBS News fit for purpose in the 21st century,” while offering a blunt message to the assembled journalists about the challenges the network faces.
“We have to start by looking honestly at ourselves,” she said. “We are not producing a product that enough people want.”
Speaking to the past, looking to the future
Bari Weiss has come under withering scrutiny for her rocky relaunch of the “CBS Evening News” with anchor Tony Dokoupil and ignited a media firestorm by abruptly shelving a “60 Minutes” segment on the plight of Venezuelan men who were swept up in Trump’s immigration crackdown and sent to a notorious El Salvador prison.
“60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi suggested the decision was “political,” and Scott Pelley reportedly told colleagues that Weiss, who only weighed in on the segment after its legal review with concerns that it didn’t include on-record administration voices, could not treat her role as “a part-time job.” Both Alfonsi and Pelley’s “jobs are on the line,” according to the New York Post.
During the town hall, Weiss acknowledged making a mistake in her last-minute handling of the “60 Minutes” report, “Inside CECOT,” but stood by her broader decision to hold the story, according to a source. Weiss, who has never worked in television news, admitted to being “green” when it comes to scheduling.
The same “Inside CECOT” report aired earlier this month with a new introduction and postscript, but without Weiss’ desired interviews with Trump administration officials, who declined to participate.
One staffer asked Weiss how CBS plans to make up for lost revenue as linear television consumption continues to decline. Weiss said that the network plans to introduce some version of a subscription-based model, though she did not specify what it would look like.
Cuts coming?
Weiss’ plans for the network are expected to also include staff cuts, according to NPR. This would be the second round of cuts under Weiss after about 100 employees were laid off in October. It is unclear how widespread the layoffs will be, though Paramount has planned to cut an additional 1,000 people across the company as part of its synergies following its merger with David Ellison’s Skydance.
After one staffer asked Weiss about the prospect of layoffs, Weiss said that she couldn’t say there wouldn’t be staff changes, while also pointing to some of the network’s open roles.
Weiss also confirmed that King would remain with the network after reports emerged that she was weighing her options for when her contract expires in May. King expressed her frustration on Tuesday about a drumbeat of leaks that have emerged since Weiss joined in October.
