Bari Weiss is a weird and worrisome choice as top editor for CBS News

[erronis]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/08/bari-weiss-cbs-news
Margaret Sullivan

When Weiss was named editor-in-chief, it was the latest turn in the network’s confounding departure from its roots

If you’re old enough to have admired CBS in its heyday, watching its decline has been painful.

Decades ago, it was dubbed the Tiffany Network – home of the great journalist Walter Cronkite (“the most trusted man in America”), and innovator of the top-flight magazine program, 60 Minutes.

Even outside its news division, the network was a place where the variety-show host Ed Sullivan could break down racial exclusion by inviting outstanding Black entertainers to his Sunday night program; that was controversial in an era of intense racial turmoil. The CBS news department had some of the best journalists in the nation, and the corporation itself exuded a sense of public mission.

But on Monday, when Bari Weiss was named editor-in-chief of CBS News, it was the latest turn in the network’s confounding departure from its roots.

. . .

Always enjoy Margaret Sullivan's observations.

[RockRaven]

1. Not weird at all if you aren't lying to yourself about the motives of the owner.

Only if you insist on willful naivety is this decision in any way confounding.

Wake the fuck up, or stop bullshitting, whichever.

[mountain grammy]

2. Taken from the article..

“Like Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the deal can be understood as part of a broader elite project to smudge the lenses through which many people see the world,” wrote the Defector’s Patrick Redford. “By installing Weiss, the richest people in the world have taken another step toward ushering in the toothless, acquiescent future of mainstream media they’ve always wanted.”

Certainly, that is something that Trump and his allies have worked relentlessly for.

Redford called it “yet another victory of marketing over its natural enemy, journalism”.

All about the money and controlling the masses.

[erronis]

5. Thanks for the addition. I gotta be vigilant about our 4 paragraph excerpt limit.

(Altho, sometimes I stray a bit....)

[yardwork]

6. Great observation by Patrick Redford:

Redford called it “yet another victory of marketing over its natural enemy, journalism”.

[UTUSN]

3. K&R

[awesomerwb1]

4. Add CBS to the list

Meta
Washington Post
NY Times
Fox "news" obviously + all daily publications
15,000 maga radio stations
Twitter
Coming soon Tik Tok

Musk + Ellison + Zuckerberg + Murdoch+ Bezos are worth over $1.3 TRILLION dollars

[NCDem47]

7. CBS News has been in the ratings crapper, like, forever

Their morning show and nightly news are constantly in deep 3rd place.i worry about 60 Minutes if its in this division. That hard hitting journalism will be GONE (though I’m sure Dems and Hollywood will be vilified plenty and blow jobs for Trump and Silicon Valley). I think this will be an attempt to pull news and entertainment hard right for one of the true original Big 3 legacy networks.

[Rebl2]

8. Haven't watched their evening

News for at least twenty or more years. Don’t like their morning news people either.