Bari Weiss, a 41-year-old Jewish opinion writer and self-described fierce Zionist, has become CBS News editor-in-chief with no prior television experience, and in just eight months has shaken the network. On May 28, nicknamed “Black Thursday” inside the newsroom, CBS dismissed a string of senior producers and reporters from “60 Minutes,” including Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega and Tanya Simon, while longtime anchor Scott Pelley soon left after accusing Weiss of “murdering the show.” She then brought in technology reporter Nick Bilton to help run the program, despite his lack of broadcast journalism experience.
Weiss’s rise followed Paramount Global’s $8 billion acquisition by David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison and a Trump ally, who later bought Weiss’s outlet The Free Press for $150 million and installed her atop CBS News. The move came amid Trump’s public praise for Weiss and Paramount’s separate decision to pay him $16 million to settle a lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. CBS also faces a pending Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery deal, which would require regulatory approval and could eventually place CNN under Weiss’s oversight.
The article portrays Weiss as aggressively remaking CBS’s editorial culture. She arrived with security, wore a CBS cap to her first staff meeting, sent a memo to 1,200 employees asking how they spend work hours, and later canceled an Alfonsi investigation into a detention center in El Salvador for allegedly lacking enough senior government response. Alfonsi called that “a political decision,” while Vega said there were efforts to inject political bias. Pelley said CBS was “home” but “the house is on fire.”
Weiss’s influence has also extended to coverage of Israel and the Trump administration. She let Benjamin Netanyahu choose his “60 Minutes” interviewer, drew praise from former ambassador Michael Oren, and has been outspoken since October 7 in support of Israel and against campus protests. Critics inside CBS argue her leadership reflects a political agenda, while Weiss says she is trying to build a large mainstream alternative for fact-based news. Veterans who survived the purge warned, “Newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships.”
