Bari Weiss Is Doing Exactly What She Was Installed at CBS to Do |
The media world is disgusted and indignant at CBS News’s new editor-in-chef Bari Weiss’s decision not to air a “60 Minutes” segment critical of the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. (In a now-deleted promo clip for the segment, the reporter said the migrants endured “four months of hell,” with one man saying, when asked if he thought he was going to die, “We thought we were already the living dead.”) According to a statement from CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, the report had been internally reviewed and cleared by broadcaster’s legal and standards departments. It had also been heavily promoted on “60 Minutes”’ social media. But three hours before it was set to air, Weiss pulled the segment, citing the need for “additional reporting” and on-camera interviews with White House officials –– who had reportedly refused to comment for weeks.
This was, of course, an excuse that didn’t pass the most basic smell test. By all accounts, the piece had been thoroughly reported, and the idea that reporters need to secure on-camera interviews with government officials before reporting on government misdeeds effectively gives the administration veto power over CBS’s news reporting, as Alfonsi pointed out.
The outrage in the U.S. media has been swift and more than justified. But in the back and forth, some key context is being overlooked — context that might help clarify that as bleak as Weiss’s move is for the future of journalism, it is a perfect example of why Paramount’s new owner, David Ellison, hired her in the first place. Her job is to suck up to Trump, yes, but largely as a means –– not an end in and of itself. If Trump favors CBS and Paramount, it could undermine the pending Netflix–Warner Bros. Discovery merger, help Ellison take over WBD himself, and cement the Ellison family’s media concentration to further advance their business interests and their right-wing ideology. This is not just a matter of routine MAGA brain rot; there are material interests at work.
Unlike in traditional corporate media arrangements, Weiss reports directly to Ellison. Her role, from the onset, has been to police the CBS newsroom, an open........