CBS News staffers are not happy with celebrity journalist Gayle King after she offered her full-throated support for newly installed MAGA-curious CBS boss Bari Weiss.
During an “all-hands” meeting at CBS earlier this week, King stood in defense of Weiss’s leadership at the network, calling Weiss “beloved” and saying she would be at the network “long into the future.”
“I like Bari, that you laid out a vision,” King said. “For many people, they’ve never even heard your freakin’ voice. So it’s good for them to hear — to see you’re a real person, and this is what you want, and how you feel about us, and how you feel about this job.”
During her speech, she also complained that the contents of the meeting would be leaked to other news outlets.
“I’ll be curious to see how long it takes for this to get out. ‘Cause it’ll be somebody in this room,” King said during the meeting.
One CBS employee told The Independent that “Gayle instead made it about her not liking the fact that people are talking to the press about her future at CBS News. Forget the substance of people’s grievances and fears.”
A CBS News insider told the outlet that King’s statement during the meeting may have been a last-ditch effort to keep her job on CBS Mornings and “stay relevant.” The staffer said King has “never been a leader” at the network, and “is in dire need of someone the staff can rally around.”
“She’s not going to say anything against the person who will determine her job status. This was her only play,” the insider said.
Another staffer at CBS said that much of the newsroom was “pretty salty” over King’s statement during the meeting. They said that King “started off almost protective” of the CBS News staff, but that her speech devolved into such an “utter disappointment” as she made it “about her not liking the fact that people are talking to the press about her future at CBS News.”
Some employees felt differently, with one telling the outlet that King received applause from staff throughout the speech.
“It was nothing but positive feelings at the end of the town hall yesterday,” one staffer said.
The Daily Beast reached out to CBS News for comment.
CBS News has been in turmoil since the network bought Weiss’s news and opinion blog, The Free Press, for $150 million and installed Weiss, who had no TV news experience before this role, as editor-in-chief.
Ratings for the network’s signature programming, including 60 Minutes and CBS Evening News, have taken a nosedive under Weiss as she continues to make the network more Trump-friendly.
Weiss told staffers on the Tuesday call that if they did not agree with her vision for CBS News, they were free to quit.
“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,” she said.
Weiss’s all-hands meeting came as NPR reported ahead of the meeting that layoffs were expected at the network. Newly installed CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and the show’s executive producer Kim Harvey had “tried to dissuade management from making any cuts,” according to a Variety report.
Despite that, one day after the meeting, the network began offering buyouts to employees at CBS Evening News.
“At yesterday’s All-Hands, Bari charted a course for CBS News that’s very different from the one we’re now on. The Evening News has a new host and a new direction, and there will be more change coming,” an email to Evening News staff reads.
“We hope you are excited about this vision, but we understand that some of you may not be, and we want to provide support. As such, we are offering an extraordinary chance to leave CBS News with an enhanced separation payment,” the email continued.
Staff have been given until Monday to respond.
During the all-hands meeting, one staffer confronted Weiss about changes at CBS Evening News.
“Certain decisions and editorial choices have scared us. At Evening News, people are afraid for their jobs and afraid to even speak for fear of retaliation,” the staffer said at the meeting.
“There has been a chilling effect within our newsroom,” they continued. “It feels right now like if we offer feedback, alternatives, or constructive criticism, that we are asking for targets on our backs—or the answer is simply no.”
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