Paramount has acquired The Free Press, a four-year old digital news platform, and will make its co-founder Bari Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News, the company announced Monday.
The official announcement came after months of speculation on the deal and Weiss’ high profile role within the news division. Weiss, 41, will report to Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, who personally courted the former New York Times journalist.
“We are thrilled to welcome Bari and The Free Press to Paramount and CBS News. Bari is a proven champion of independent, principled journalism, and I am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News,” Ellison said in a statement. “This move is part of Paramount’s bigger vision to modernize content and the way it connects – directly and passionately – to audiences around the world.”
Paramount is paying around $150 million in cash and stock for The Free Press, a feisty, upstart operation that generated attention through opinion pieces and podcasts with a strong point of view. Its favorite targets are the excesses of progressive left and purveyors of so-called “woke” policies.
CBS News is a traditional mass appeal network TV operation with a proud legacy of journalistic excellence and the home of popular franchises “60 Minutes” and “CBS Sunday Morning.” But the division has struggled to deal with the shifts in audience habits brought about by streaming video and social media.
Weiss is a provocateur who famously resigned from her high profile role in the opinion section of the New York Times in 2020, citing bullying by her colleagues and a hostile work environment as the reasons. She has no experience in television or running an editorial operation on the scale of CBS News, which has more than 1,000 employees.
Weiss also ascends at a time when the Trump has threatened news operations with lawsuits and regulatory action, such as pulling station TV licenses over what he believes is unfair criticism of him and his administration. Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a Trump lawsuit making the dubious claim that a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to aid her 2024 presidential election campaign against him.
CBS News has never had an executive with the title editor in chief before naming Weiss to the role. It still has a president —-Tom Cibrowski — a former ABC News executive hired earlier this year who will remain in his role and continue to report to to Paramount TV Media President George Cheeks.
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