(Oct 9, 2025 01:10 AM)Yazata Wrote: I don't really think that hiring Bari Weiss will make CBS into a Conservative competitor to Fox News.

My impression of Bari Weiss is that she is an old-fashioned liberal, like democrats were back in the 20th century. What got her tarred and feathered and chased out of the left isn't just that she's an outspoken free-speech advocate, but also that she's Jewish and a supporter of Israel.

While I expect CBS News to continue to tilt left (probably 90% of its staff are democrats) if we are lucky there might be greater willingness to have Republicans on and to treat them fairly when they are. Hopefully a lot less Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Ideally, CBS News might be watchable again.

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2025-10-06/who-is-bari-weiss-the-iconoclastic-new-head-of-cbs-news

EXCERPT: Weiss defies easy characterization, though she has sometimes been called a “radical centrist.” At a TED Talk in April 2024, she said she voted for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for president in 2016 and 2020.

She is pro-choice, proudly pro-Israel, and believes in gay marriage “so much so that I’m actually in one myself.” But she also believes that mandatory school lockdowns during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic were “a big mistake” and that people should be hired based on merit.

“I am -- or at least until a few seconds ago in historical time, I used to be -- considered a standard-issue liberal,” said Weiss at the TED Talk. “And yet somehow, in our most intellectual and prestigious spaces, many of the ideas I just outlined and others like them, have become provocative or controversial, which is really a polite way of saying unwelcome.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/cbs-news-bari-weiss-editorial-call-b2841070.html

EXCERPT: The sarcastic reaction from some CBS journalists to Weiss’ first full proclamation to the newsroom isn’t entirely unexpected, considering that much of the staff had not only expressed trepidation over her impending arrival but were “literally freaking out” over the wholesale changes new Paramount owner David Ellison has been implementing at the Tiffany network.

[...] On top of that, as sources have told The Independent, CBS News is already “not a welcoming place for outsiders,” noting that “the idea that somebody that we don't want is going to come in here and somehow manage to survive this is, I think, laughable.”

[...] “She is richer in social clout than in Emmys or Pulitzers. And she is known more for wanting to rid the world of so-called wokeness than for promoting journalistic traditions. While newsroom leaders do not traditionally trumpet their personal beliefs, Ms. Weiss has described herself as a ‘left-leaning centrist,’ a ‘radical centrist,’ ‘a gay woman who is moderately pro-choice’ — she is married to Nellie Bowles, a former Times reporter who is a co-founder of The Free Press — and a proud recipient of the label ‘Zionist fanatic.’” Testa wrote.

“Yet she has also come to symbolize the power and potential of independent media. Her world is a patchwork of podcasts, newsletters and videos built around a common idea that legacy outlets have lost their authority and connection with readers,” Testa continued.