Bari Weiss is expected to be announced as editor-in-chief of CBS News, as employees worry her new role will bring a pro-Israel bias, more censorship, and lower editorial standards. UPDATE: Weiss has been named editor-in-chief.
By Prem Thakker, Reposted from Zeteo, October 05, 2025
The atmosphere inside CBS News is tense as Bari Weiss, the conservative, pro-Israel columnist and founder of The Free Press, prepares to take the reins as the new editor-in-chief of the network’s news division, sources tell Zeteo.
One source inside the newsroom says the general sense among all those inside CBS “who are interested in fairness and journalism and accountability” right now is: “What the fuck?”
Weiss, whose news site has minimized the ongoing genocide and mass starvation in Gaza, is best known for quitting her job as an op-ed writer at the New York Times, where she claimed she was bullied by her liberal colleagues. Weiss is expected to be announced as the new editor-in-chief at CBS News as early as Monday, following the merger between its parent company, Paramount, and Skydance Media. Paramount Skydance will reportedly pay $150 million to buy The Free Press.
Zeteo spoke with five sources across the CBS newsroom who describe an atmosphere rife with insult over the new hire, concerns about Weiss’s ability to do the job, paranoia about speaking out, and fears that editorial quality will suffer. The sources were granted anonymity out of fear of retribution.
The first source recoils at the thought of Paramount Skydance paying $150 million for The Free Press, calling it a “rag” while arguing that “most of the stuff that’s published” on the site “wouldn’t pass standard requirements at CBS News.”
“If I wrote 90 percent of what’s on The Free Press, I would get flagged and fired,” the source says.
Emotions are heightened as staff continue to learn about newsroom developments from other media outlets, rather than from their company’s senior leadership. Such developments include the appointment of a supposed “bias monitor” prior to Weiss’s arrival, as a condition of the Paramount-Skydance merger, in order to obtain the Trump administration’s approval. This monitor, Kenneth Weinstein, is a Republican donor, Donald Trump ally, and former CEO of the conservative and pro-Israel think tank, the Hudson Institute.
All the while, staff are preparing for imminent mass layoffs as Skydance looks to cut costs. CBS has already announced it’s ending the late-night show hosted by Trump critic Stephen Colbert.
‘Water-cooler Whispering’
Weiss’s expected hiring and The Free Press deal are part of Paramount’s ongoing right-wing makeover under Skydance CEO David Ellison. Ellison’s father, Larry, is the CEO of tech giant Oracle and a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; the elder Ellison is set to be part of the social media platform TikTok’s new ownership group, which was arranged by Trump.
A second source says at CBS, “the water-cooler whispering is all coming from the rumor mill and what people read online,” adding: “No reassurance or info is coming from bureau chiefs or company leadership on impending layoffs.”
Sources worry the moves at CBS are about serving a political and corporate agenda, not a mission to improve its newsroom.
“We know what’s happening here,” says the first source. “We’re not dumb. We know this is a consolidation of power. We know what David Ellison, Larry Ellison, we know what they’re after. And there are a lot of people inside the network that are asking the question: Do we stay and fight or do we walk away and let the news division become what it becomes?”
Multiple sources express concern that Weiss’s hiring, the Ellisons’ ongoing corporate acquisitions, and newsroom restructuring will impact CBS’s coverage of Washington, DC, and the White House. “Those things are all aligning, which I think is deeply uncomfortable for a lot of people at CBS,” says the third source, adding that the network’s journalists would be “deeply uncomfortable with being used as a political pawn.”
Sources predict Weiss will seek to reshape ‘60 Minutes,’ the network’s famed investigative show, given that its coverage on Gaza has attracted ire from some pro-Israel groups.
The show has already come under pressure from the Trump administration, amid the Paramount-Skydance merger, prompting longtime producer Bill Owens to depart. Over the summer, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to Trump’s library fund to settle the president’s spurious lawsuit over how it edited its interview last year with Kamala Harris.
On the other hand, a third CBS source notes that ‘60 Minutes’ has already largely avoided covering Gaza. ”They actually did one Gaza story for these entire two years, they’ve only done one, and that was, you know, the only one where there has been a pushback,” they say.
The first source thought it was “stunning” to think CBS was ever “too pro-Palestinian, or shows too much humanity or sympathy for Gaza.” They thought the network had done a comparatively solid job given the mainstream media’s tendency to report on the issue poorly, but it has otherwise failed “miserably” in bringing in and featuring Palestinian voices up to this point.
The third source says that they thought the genocide in Gaza would be the biggest story in the media and that the network would be “all in” on covering it, but that simply has not been the case. “Everyone talks about balance – as if that’s, you know, the way to do it. How do you balance genocide?” they say.
Multiple sources express disappointment in how their network had covered Israel’s genocide in Gaza so far, and fears of more censorship on this topic under the pro-Israel Weiss, whose outlet recently ran a controversial story suggesting that Israel is not imposing mass starvation on Palestinians, despite what humanitarian advocates and experts say, because some kids who died of starvation had other health conditions.
The second source points to how Weiss once “happily” described herself as a “Zionist fanatic,” and appears “bent” on framing younger generations’ views on Gaza as ill-informed or antisemitic.
The source says they and other colleagues don’t believe CBS News, under Weiss, will be allowed to publish stories like its report on Friday, revealing that Netanyahu ordered drone attacks on two vessels in the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was carrying peaceful volunteers from around the world, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, seeking to deliver aid to Palestinians.
‘No Experience’
Staffers are not just worried about coverage of Israel and Palestine, or the White House. A fourth source says that everyone at CBS – whether they cover crime, or healthcare, or anything in between – is “deeply concerned” about the changes being made.
Those concerns aren’t simply about ideology or bias, but experience and expertise – or Weiss’s lack thereof.
The first source notes that Weiss “has been spouting off really vile things for years and years and years, and has an incredibly clear agenda and bias.” Further, they note that CBS is “bringing somebody in who has never worked in TV news [and] has no idea how to run a network.”
They add: “We don’t know what the hell her job is going to be. I mean, ‘editor-in-chief’ – what does that even mean? It makes no sense. Where does she fit in the hierarchy?”
Multiple sources express similar thoughts, saying they aren’t sure who Weiss will report to, who will report to her, and how granularly involved she will be in newsroom processes – or whether she would even know how to oversee it.
“There’s no experience there. It’s a massive news operation with so many moving parts that if you do not understand the news operation at a fundamental level, you will fuck it up,” a fifth source warned.
The third source notes that CBS was hardly ever left-wing before, and was built on industry standards about objectivity and professionalism that are now at risk.
“I do not think a lot of the stuff that’s on Bari Weiss’s Free Press would pass our standards,” they say. “It’s offensive that someone’s being hired who has zero experience in television. There are people at CBS who have dedicated their entire careers to understanding and developing the skills that are needed,” they continue, noting that TV is “a very specific medium.”
“Obviously, editorial principles remain the same regardless, but there are specific ways to do TV … it’s an art, and it takes time. And you think somebody who was going to be put into a senior role like that would at least have some kind of experience,” they add.
This source and others consider Weiss’s ascendance and her company’s reported $150 million windfall to be insulting, especially given the fear of widespread layoffs at CBS.
With her hiring, sources wonder whom Weiss may now displace, and how that may trickle down.
“She knows that she can’t come in here by herself and expect that the people surrounding [her] are all going to fall in line,” the first source says. “She’s going to have to bring some foot soldiers in. So I would expect that there will be some changes made, not only at the executive level, but even at the troop level, correspondent, producer level, on the ground level.”
Prem Thakker is the Zeteo Political Correspondent & Columnist
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