If Bari Weiss were as good at reporting on news as she is in making it, she’s probably would have already been awarded a Peabody or a Pulitzer Prize. Who knows, maybe FIFA might have created an award just for her, too.
Don’t take that comparison as merely a feeble attempt at snark on my part. She too has been given the keys to a kingdom by a couple of billionaires and charged in headfirst like a bull in a china shop in her new job, all the while espousing viewpoints that an awful lot of traditionalists find abhorrent. And since plenty of them are still reporters themselves, that apparently elevates events like the one she held yesterday to breaking news status. It took both Isabella Simonetti and Joe Flint to produce THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’s report:
Weiss laid out her vision for the network at an all-hands meeting Tuesday, saying that winning back audiences’ trust in the media is key for the future of CBS News. The gathering was Weiss’s first major address to CBS News staff after a tumultuous first few months on the job. She asked staff early on to lay out how they spend their days, installed a new “CBS Evening News” anchor and drew ire for delaying the broadcast of a “60 Minutes” segment that was originally slated to run in December.
Weiss urged staff to pursue more exclusive pieces. She acknowledged pressures being felt across the news industry, with a fragmented audience that wants fast takes, deep dives and access to stories in many formats. She discussed a transformation of the news organization’s website and making more use of social-media platforms, such as YouTube, and said CBS News needs to give priority to getting stories done quickly over focusing on which show they will air on.
And as one might expect from the likes of MEDIAITE, Sean James–along with a fairly opinionated journalist with wider reach–dished even more dirt:
CBS News boss Bari Weiss told staffers they are not putting out enough content that appeals to Americans — while also sharing her strategy to grab more viewers and readers — during an internal town hall meeting on Tuesday.
CNN’s Brian Stelter posted her comments on X. Weiss was frank in her assessment of her team, saying CBS News can only improve after “honestly” looking at its own work — which she is not overly impressed with so far. “We are not producing a product that enough people want,” Weiss said. She continued, “We can blame demographics or technology or fractured attention spans or ‘news avoidance’ — but these are all copes.”
(S)he said there are two main issues facing CBS right now, with the first one being that not enough people “trust” the outlet or other mainstream shops in general. The polling backs up her claim, with Gallup reporting the American public’s trust in the news dropped to an all-time low in 2025. The second issue is CBS is not “doing enough to meet” viewers and readers where they are, Weiss said. She said the CBS strategy up until she arrived was to “cling” to its dwindling broadcast audience. Weiss said that cannot be the case moving forward, or CBS News will be “toast.
Judging by the initial ratings her first significant move–retooling the legendary CBS EVENING NEWS with her hand-picked mannequin Tony Dokoupil–have delivered, there’s certainly support for her dour outlook. But as THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Alex Weprin noted, she actually took the time to do some other research to back up her bravado:
“We can debate why that is, but the numbers tell the story. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 28 percent of people say we have their trust. Second: We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are. So they are leaving us. They are not tuning out, far from it. In fact, Americans spend twice as much time consuming news today as they did 50 years ago. They are going to the vast universe of podcasts and YouTube and Twitch and newsletters and, yes, sometimes to our nimbler competitors”.
So to that end, Weiss is reimagining her workplace to better adapt to the world she comes out of. James took note of that gameplan:
Starting immediately, Weiss wants CBS News to focus on how it can better promote stories on YouTube and emphasize streaming. “We need to shift to a streaming mentality immediately,” she said. A moment later, she told her crew: As we move forward, we are not competing primarily for ratings but for audience share. Our competitors are not just the other broadcast networks. We are competing for the attention of anyone in front of a screen.
And Weprin added further details that underscores that, like it or not, this is not your father’s Oldsmobile:
Weiss unveiled a slate of contributors, including podcasters and writers like Niall Ferguson, Andrew Huberman, Caroline Chambers and Casey Lewis. She also unveiled plans to bring on digital-first journalists who are veterans of social platforms like TikTok and YouTube.
Those are names that come from Weiss’ world and generation; many of them were her colleagues and compatriots at The Free Press. They don’t necessarily care about outdated and incomplete metrics like Nielsen ratings, and given the other changes in CBS’ management team that we mused about just three days ago it’s obvious her superiors are moving forward from that approach as well.
I can’t begin to tell you how many negative reviews of this strategy flooded my social media feeds in the wake of this. But funny how virtually none of them even offered an acknowledgement of the even more sweeping housekeeping that the ever-intrepid Nellie Andreeva of DEADLINE dropped at the top of this week:
Amazon MGM Studios’ new Head of Global Television Peter Friedlander is putting his stamp by restructuring the studio’s scripted series team and bringing in Blair Fetter, who previously worked with him at Netflix. Leaving as part of the reorg are the two top scripted executives under previous Amazon MGM Studios TV head Vernon Sanders: Laura Lancaster as Head of US SVOD TV Development and Series – Co-Productions, and Nick Pepper as Head of US SVOD TV Development and Series – Wholly Owned. Both are in talks for producing deals with the streaming studio.
“Effective immediately, we are transitioning from our current structure — split between Wholly Owned and Co-Productions — to a streamlined, genre-based organization (drama & comedy, worldbuilding, animation, and unscripted),” Friedlander said in a memo announcing the changes, which you can read in full. The realignment, which bears some resemblance to Netflix’s scripted series executive structure, impacts both development and current.
I would contend that Friedlander’s actions reflect an even more significant shift in infrastructure and approach than what Weiss revealed yesterday, yet somehow it didn’t register even a blip even among the media-centric observers that otherwise feel compelled to opine. Many of the same traditional and evolving metrics that Weiss referenced both as her touchstones and her albatrosses have continually shown that Amazon and Prime Video have consistently fallen dramatically short of the standards that Netflix has set. And while the history of streaming media doesn’t harken back quite as far as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, they’ve both been at this now for more than a decade. That’s not exactly a small sample size in any world.
I’m pretty certain this isn’t the only other workplace where things are in flux. Office politics are a reality in any industry–even ones that don’t warrant dozens of publications weighing in on it.
I’m honestly exhausted from the hand-wringing and dismissing of practically every single thing Weiss has chosen to do in her brief tenure to date. It’s eerily reminiscent of the sort of obsessive “fact-checking” that consistently from the far too preoccupied minds of the likes of Heather Cox Richardson, Mary Trump and the entire staff of THE BULWARK every day, not to mention the copycats at MeidasTouch and Occupy Democrats that blather on far longer than even I do. Enough already. At least Weiss gets a report card that matters to her superiors–Nielsen or not, she will ultimately be judged by that. And there’s at least no imminent threat to the potential of that being repealed by the imposition of martial law anytime soon. Why not just let her ultimately judged by that rather than what you consider to be immovable self-imposed standards of excellence that have zero relevance in a year that begins with the numbers 2-0-2?
To that end, as Weprin noted, Weiss put an exclamation point on her “town hall” with this firm reminder:
“(S)tartups aren’t for everyone. They’re places that move at a rapid speed. They experiment. They try new things. They sometimes create noise and, yes, bad press,” she said. “If that’s not your bag, that’s OK. It’s a free country and I completely respect if you decide this is just not the right place at the right time for you.
Perhaps they should proactively connect on LinkedIn with someone like Peter Friedlander. No need for any of y’all to be the next Laura Lancaster or Nick Pepper.
Until next time…