CBS, Bari Weiss, and capitulation
Why the corporate media is fast-tracking us into authoritarianism
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while now, you already know how I feel about the corporate legacy media’s repeated capitulation to Donald Trump. From multi-million dollar legal settlements to cleaning house of editorial staff at certain newsrooms, many news outlets that Americans once revered as impartial or unbiased have shown their true colors in the second Trump era.
This week, that capitulation is once again on full display at CBS News - the place where I began my own career in media many years ago.
In case you haven’t been following the story, Paramount Global (the parent company of CBS), is reportedly on the verge of acquiring the right-leaning outlet The Free Press for over $100 million. The Free Press is a Substack-focused media startup founded by Bari Weiss, a controversial former New York Times opinion editor known for her critiques of the progressive movement, her outspoken “anti-woke” viewpoints, and lack of basic fact-checking. As part of this potential deal with Paramount, Weiss is poised to assume a significant editorial role at CBS News, marking a clear pivot toward conservative influence within one of America’s most storied news organizations.
This shocking move comes shortly after one of the most consequential media mergers of the year: Skydance Media's $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global, which brought CBS News under the control of CEO David Ellison. The merger itself was approved by federal regulators only after the companies agreed to several demands and favors for the Trump administration, including appointing an ombudsman to oversee claims of bias at CBS News, dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, expanding “viewpoint diversity,” and ending the highly rated “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” These concessions reveal the degree to which the Trump administration has exerted leverage over one of the nation's largest media conglomerates to reshape its editorial direction and internal culture, and how the company’s corporate leadership went along with it without even the faintest gasp of a fight.
The culmination of this pressure campaign was illustrated by Paramount's legal settlement with Donald Trump. In July 2025, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over an alleged misleading editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Despite widespread consensus among legal experts that the lawsuit lacked merit and CBS had full First Amendment protections, Paramount chose to settle — widely seen as a move to secure the Trump administration's approval of the Skydance merger.
In my view, the likely acquisition of The Free Press and Weiss’s editorial role at CBS News represent more than just a normal media business transaction; they symbolize another example of capitulation to MAGA-aligned media pressure and an alarming recalibration of journalistic values within one of America’s flagship legacy news institutions. Even worse, this move foreshadows the decisive retrofitting of long-trusted news organization brands like CBS to not only cease to report on anything that would appear unfavorable to this White House administration, but to offensively do their bidding through content they will mask as “objective journalism.”
Taken together, this week’s developments at CBS further underscore the need for an independent, left-of-center media ecosystem that is unafraid to proactively and aggressively hold MAGA authoritarians and their new media cronies accountable. That’s what our team at COURIER has been building for the past six years, and if we were being offered $100 million today by mission-aligned billionaires like Bari is, we could be at least 10x the size we are today, with an equal ability to shape the narrative - but in Americans' favor.
You’re invited: REPRESENT
I hope you’ll join me and the COURIER team in New York next Wednesday for REPRESENT, a special live event with political leaders and digital creators discussing how to create media-powered movements, how campaigns effectively partner with content creators, and the new digital-first tactics + strategies needed to win. See who’s speaking, find more details, and RSVP here >>
What I’m reading this week:
Why more and more people are tuning the news out: ‘Now I don’t have that anxiety’ (The Guardian, 9/1)
“News has never been more accessible – but for some, that’s exactly the problem. Flooded with information and relentless updates, more and more people around the world are tuning out…Globally, news avoidance is at a record high, according to an annual survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published in June. This year, 40% of respondents, surveyed across nearly 50 countries, said they sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017 and the joint highest figure recorded. The number was even higher in the US, at 42%...”
Bari Weiss Poised For Top Role At CBS News: Reports (HuffPost, 9/3)
“Paramount is nearing a deal to acquire The Free Press for as much as $200 million and elevate Weiss to a top position at CBS as a result.”
PBS to Cut 15% of Its Staff (NYT, 9/4)
“PBS is cutting 100 positions, or roughly 15 percent of its staff, as a result of the major federal funding cuts to public broadcasting. Paula Kerger, the chief executive of PBS, said in an email to station managers on Thursday that the staff reductions were a last resort. The organization had already frozen hiring, restricted travel and paused pay increases.”
'Founders Museum' from White House and PragerU blurs history, AI-generated fiction (NPR, 9/3)
“A new history exhibit commissioned by the Trump administration has some historians perplexed, as the administration's pushback on arts and history raises questions about omitting marginalized voices in the nation's history…”