CBS News Bari Weiss’ own foreign editor called an all-hands meeting Tuesday morning where she menaced staffers for questioning her authority with accusations of “insubordination.”
Shayndi Raice, whom Status described as CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss’ “handpicked” foreign editor, spoke to the network’s foreign bureau in a virtual meeting which was surreptitiously recorded and provided to media watchdog Status.
Raice said she wanted to address a recent Israel report, then defended her editorial decisions and insisted they were not “interference,” Status reported. TheWrap, citing Status, said the dispute centered on a “CBS Evening News” segment marking the Oct. 7 anniversary.
Refusing to follow the chain of command, Raice warned, “… is called insubordination, and it’s legal grounds for firing.”
One attendee described it as a “15-minute tirade” and told Status there were “jaws on the floor” when she finished.
Afterward, correspondent Holly Williams challenged Raice over the directives she had received on her report, Status reported. Raice told Williams she had gotten the story “wrong” because she doesn’t “know the story as well as I do.”
“For the record, my biggest concern about the dictated script that was sent to me was not about the death toll. It was about the removal of the allegations specific to Benjamin Netanyahu,” Williams replied, according to Status, in an apparent reference to reports that Netanyahu was warned before the Oct. 7 attack. Netanyahu has denied being warned, NPR reported.
Raice shot back, “I was just in Israel for Sukkot. I have a lot of friends who live there. We’re talking about politics the entire time. Everybody was talking about the election. Everybody was talking about Netanyahu and October 7. Nobody was talking about those allegations. And you know why? Because nobody really cares. That is not an issue in the election.”
“Those allegations are a sideshow,” Raice insisted. “It’s not important, and I just think you got it wrong. And you probably got it wrong because you don’t know the story as well as I do. And that’s where my experience and my judgment comes in.”
Status also reported that Raice called the Palestinian death toll, which it put at more than 74,000, a “magic number,” said including it was “not saving Palestinians” and described citing it as “posturing.” Raice had argued earlier that the figure includes Hamas combatants, Status reported.
Oliver Darcy of Status observed, “The explosive confrontation… offered a remarkable window into the editorial tensions roiling Weiss’ CBS News.”
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