Media Industry and Press Freedom

CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss has called an all‑staff meeting for late Tuesday morning, where she is expected to announce significant job cuts and a new strategy built around hiring roughly 18 paid on‑air commentators, according to multiple CBS journalists who spoke anonymously to NPR. Weiss, a former opinion writer at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal brought in by Paramount’s new controlling owner David Ellison, has already clashed with much of the 60 Minutes staff, pushed to remake the CBS Evening News, and openly questioned whether CBS reporting in recent years has been fair or trustworthy. Insiders say she has told employees she wants only "top‑flight" performers who buy into her approach to stay, and that she welcomes internal debate but "cannot abide" public dissent. Liberal critics outside the network accuse her of carrying out the agenda of owners aligned with President Trump, who previously extracted a $16 million settlement from CBS over a 60 Minutes interview and demanded an ombudsman to police ideological bias, while Weiss denies she is doing political bidding. The shake‑up signals a deeper ideological and structural pivot at one of the country’s big three network news divisions, with potential consequences for how national politics and policy are framed to mass audiences.