Bari Weiss faces uphill battle to reshape CBS News as network buries coverage of growing Virginia Dem scandal
Bari Weiss has been tasked with leading CBS News into a modern, post-partisan era, but old habits die hard as the network continues to bury a political scandal rocking Virginia during her first week on the job.
On Monday, Weiss was formally named editor-in-chief of CBS News after her outlet, The Free Press, was acquired by Paramount for $150 million, according to multiple reports. She will be reporting directly to Paramount's new CEO, David Ellison.
In a memo to CBS News employees, Weiss listed ten "core journalistic values" she wants practiced, including holding "both American political parties to equal scrutiny." Ellison similarly expressed that he wanted to tamp down the "partisan division" in his own memo to Paramount staff.
That message doesn’t appear to have resonated with the rank and file, at least not yet. According to show transcripts reviewed by Fox News Digital, CBS News has yet to provide any on-air coverage of the growing controversies plaguing Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee in Virginia's attorney general race.
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Last week, text messages sent by Jones in 2022 to a fellow lawmaker surfaced showing him fantasizing about giving then-Republican House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert "two bullets to the head," even suggesting that if Gilbert witnessed the murder of his own children that it would encourage him to pivot on policy. Jones has since apologized.
Other controversies have emerged, including allegations that Jones had said if more police were killed it would reduce the shootings of civilians, which he denied. And after a reckless driving conviction in 2022, Jones served 500 hours of "community service" to his own Political Action Committee.
The political fallout remains unclear. Jones' troubles could impact Virginia's gubernatorial race as his Democratic ballot running mate Abigail Spanberger maintains a lead in the polls against her Republican rival, incumbent Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears. While Jones hasn't had any Democratic officials call on him to withdraw from the race, he was forced to cancel a fundraiser.
Neither "CBS Mornings," "CBS Evening News" nor its Sunday program "Face The Nation" mentioned Jones through Thursday, according to transcripts. The network did publish an article and referenced the story on its little-watched streaming platform.
A CBS News staffer told Fox News Digital that Jones was mentioned in editorial discussions, but was stumped as to why the network's morning and evening newscasts avoided the subject.
DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall says Weiss' directive may not work on "activist journalists," pointing to the soft coverage of the Jay Jones scandal as an early example.
"Her task is not just about changing isolated news decisions," McCall told Fox News Digital. "She will have to change the entrenched culture that led to CBS’ long-running tendency to lean left."
What stories CBS News chooses to cover and not cover on its airwaves and how it frames the political news of the day have alienated large swaths of the country, particularly in the era of Donald Trump.
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Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl famously dismissed Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop during a contentious exchange with Trump.
"This is '60 Minutes' and we can't put on things that we can't verify," Stahl scolded Trump. CBS News ultimately verified the laptop in 2022.
Fast-forward to the 2024 election, "60 Minutes" was engulfed in a much bigger controversy, this time involving its handling of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump sued CBS News alleging "election interference" after the network was accused of swapping one of Harris' "word salad" responses ahead of a "60 Minutes" primetime election special after a preview clip that aired on "Face The Nation" went viral among her critics.
A raw interview transcript that was later released revealed both sets of comments that aired came from different portions of the same answer. While CBS News denied wrongdoing, Paramount made a multimillion-dollar settlement in July hoping it would pave the way for its $8 billion merger with Skydance, which Trump's FCC approved days later. And as part of the settlement, CBS News updated its policies that would require programs to release unedited transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates.
That wasn't the only election controversy CBS was involved in. The network was panned by conservatives for how anchors Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan moderated the vice-presidential debate between then-Ohio Sen. JD Vance and his Democratic rival, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Despite CBS announcing that it would not allow live fact-checking during the debate, the moderators repeatedly fact-checked Vance and even cut off his mic at one point.
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Brennan, host of "Face The Nation," has particularly irked conservatives for her combative exchanges with Republicans, including Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Her reputation has taken such a hit that she won this year's "Liberal Hack Tournament," the annual viral NCAA-style contest run by the Ruthless podcast.
CBS News faced internal strife when far-left staffers fumed over "CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil for daring to challenge anti-Israel author Ta-Nehisi Coates in a tense interview last year. Things got so bad that CBS News leadership at the time scolded the Jewish anchor and forced him to meet with the network’s in-house Race and Culture Unit following complaints, saying his interview did not meet the company’s "editorial standards" (noteworthy as Weiss and Ellison are both staunch supporters of Israel).
Just last month, CBS News anchor John Dickerson said that the motive behind the assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk remained "elusive," despite reports about the alleged assassin's leftist ideology.
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Weiss' meteoric rise to the top of one of the storied legacy media institutions is leaving liberal journalists incensed. Weiss famously quit The New York Times in 2020, writing a scathing resignation letter in which she detailed bullying by colleagues in what she called an "illiberal environment." In 2022, she launched The Free Press, which has largely been ostracized by the cultural left for its reporting that challenges DEI, gender ideology and media narratives against Israel in its war with Hamas.
Staffers who spoke with Fox News Digital are open to "fresh ideas" Weiss may bring to CBS News, although she still has her detractors at the network, particularly after her first appearance on the network's editorial call Tuesday, where she made the rallying cry, "Let's do the f---ing news."
"I feel like the people that wrote her off probably are further in their corner," one staffer told Fox News Digital. "The people that are open to her, I think, are still open."
Many of her liberal critics in the media claim Weiss is a "conservative" who will bend the network's knee to Trump, even though she has openly criticized him on her "Honestly" podcast. Some also believe her appointment by Ellison was part of an arrangement Paramount made with Trump to resolve his lawsuit.
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Status newsletter author Oliver Darcy, who helped lead the charge to oust CNN CEO Chris Licht when he attempted to reform the liberal cable network, has criticized Ellison’s move to put Weiss in charge.
"Ellison vowed not to politicize Paramount — yet his first big move at CBS News is a major bet on Bari Weiss, one of the most polarizing figures in media," Darcy began his newsletter Wednesday night. "Weiss, the stridently pro-Israel, proudly anti-'woke' culture warrior, has built her brand on polarizing political commentary — supposedly the type of material Ellison signaled to reporters that he wishes to run away from."
CBS News did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
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Fox News Digital’s Kristine Parks and Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
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