Paramount may buy The Free Press, the independent news outlet Bari Weiss (pictured right) launched in 2022, and give its owner a senior editorial role at CBS.
Weiss made waves in 2020 when she pushed back against cancel culture and the influence of Twitter on The New York Times, where she had been an op-ed staff editor and writer.
Her resignation letter summarized her "constructive discharge" was because of "unlawful discrimination" and a "hostile work environment."
Weiss, who "lives with her wife and daughter in Los Angeles," is not exactly conservative. Still, Curtis Houck of Media Research Center (MRC) says the fact that CBS is considering giving her a senior role indicates the network may be pulling out of the race to the bottom as the nation's most Trump-deranged media outlet.
"It could be very successful and help drag CBS News back towards the center that respects the opinions of all Americans, covers a wide variety of stories," he submits.
However, it could also play out like CNN's aborted attempt to bring balance to the network under the short-lived and ineffective tenure of CEO Chris Licht, who tried to drop much of the left-wing bias by moving the "most trusted name in news" away from opinion shows and do more straight-forward news reporting.
"The inmates decided that, no, we're still in charge here; we're still running this asylum, and they more or less – along with some self-inflicted errors by Chris Licht – threw him overboard," Houck recalls.
According to the New York Post, CBS News staffers are "apoplectic" and are threatening to quit if Weiss is hired. But if CBS and Weiss reach a deal, Houck says the first sign of real change will be how it covers the war in Israel. Weiss is a Jewish, pro-Israel journalist, and CBS has been heavily criticized by pro-Israel organizations for lacking balance on the topic.
The deal comes on the heels of last month's merger between David Ellison's Skydance Media and Paramount Global, which ended decades of Redstone family control. The FCC reportedly signed off on the transaction after Ellison agreed to install an ombudsman to police bias, dismantle DEI programs, and elevate "viewpoint diversity."
