A talk on the “future of journalism” by the editor-in-chief of CBS News was declared “canceled” by its organizers Wednesday.
The lecture from Bari Weiss, 41, at the University of California, Los Angeles, was scheduled to take place on Feb. 27. The event was part of a memorial lecture series honoring journalist Daniel Pearl, whose death at the hands of militants in Karachi made him a symbol of press freedom.
The cancellation notice was posted on a UCLA website and detailed that current ticket holders for the event would receive a full reimbursement.
A source close to Weiss said that there had been a “scheduling conflict” and that the speech would take place at an unspecified date in the future.
Opens in new windowAccording to the website, former speakers at the lecture series have included Anderson Cooper. The Vanderbilt scion made a shock exit from 60 Minutes on Monday, with reports indicating that “at least one other correspondent” may also quit under Weiss’s leadership.
Prior to the cancellation announcement, Weiss’s planned appearance was protested by the grassroots organization CODEPINK. The group called UCLA’s choice of Weiss as a speaker “shameful” and urged people to send letters to the Burkle Center for International Relations, which hosted the event, demanding its cancellation.
“Weiss has recently aligned herself with the Trump administration,” read a statement by CODEPINK.
The statement noted that since her takeover as editor-in-chief of CBS News in October, Weiss had canceled a 60 Minutes segment at the last minute. The segment detailed the grisly conditions at an El Salvador megaprison where Venezuelan men deported by President Donald Trump, 79, were held—a move correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who reported the story, called “political.”
“It’s obvious Weiss is unpopular with the American people,” the statement said, noting falling CBS Evening News viewership under Weiss’ installment of Tony Dokoupil as the program’s anchor.
The CBS boss has also had a hard time with her own staff, as many accepted voluntary buyouts in the evening news division in February, following a “bloodbath” of layoffs in October and ahead of reports that at least 15 percent more staff could be cut in the coming months.
The cancellation of Weiss’s lecture also comes as the broader network—not just the news division she leads—has dominated headlines this week.
The same day Cooper announced his exit, another one of the network’s stars, Stephen Colbert—whose Late Show was canceled last year—accused CBS of blocking a rising Democratic star from appearing on his program to avoid making President Trump “cranky,” with CBS firing back at his claims, saying they were not true.
At the same time, CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance—owned by Trump ally David Ellison—was given another chance to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery after being rejected multiple times.
In response to Weiss’s cancellation, users on social media mocked the decision to have her speak about the “future of journalism” amid her controversial tenure as editor-in-chief.
“This is great but now this just means we are going to get a year of ‘cancel culture is the real enemy’ features on CBS Evening News,” one user posted on X, referring to Weiss’s frequent attacks on cancel culture.
“Well, at first I suspected Bari had cancelled herself, by accident, because she’s good at such a thing,” another user replied to a post about the lecture being called off, referring to the 60 Minutes episode about El Salvador prisons.
The Daily Beast has reached out to representatives from CBS News and UCLA for comment.
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