It’s Starting to Feel Like the American People are Winning

 

Apparently, the sky is falling at CBS News. The employees are beside themselves with anger and worry.  They fear journalism as they know it may be coming to an end.

 

Here’s what ignited the meltdown. In 2020, a woman by the name of Bari Weiss resigned from the New York Times because she had been mocked by colleagues for her centrist views.  She described herself as a victim of “a new McCarthyism that has taken root at the paper of record” and published a scathing letter that went viral to expose what she called an “illiberal environment” at the Times.  A year later she launched “The Free Press”, a forum welcoming a wide range of viewpoints. She believed in “the notion that the best ideas win out.”

 

In 5 short years “The Free Press” became a wild financial success, catapulting Weiss into the role of major player in a series of mergers and acquisitions.  Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, merged with a company called Skydance.  David Ellison, the CEO of Skydance, became CEO of the joint company.  Paramount recently acquired The Free Press for $150 million and Bari Weiss was just named Editor-in-Chief of CBS News. In her new position, Weiss will report directly to Ellison rather than the President of CBS News. It appears from a distance the corporate brass intends to try to salvage their company with a return to journalistic integrity and they don’t want their change agent obstructed.

 

Dan Rather, now 93, was a CBS News anchor for many years and is still revered by members of the news media even though he was forced to leave in 2005 after a hit piece on George W. Bush could not be substantiated. He is very upset because David Ellison is a conservative billionaire whose father is a friend of Donald Trump. He took to Substack, the online publishing platform, and didn’t hold back. “The American people will pay the price for this move as well as the journalists at CBS News who can no longer credibly serve as watch dogs because the ones they are meant to hold to account are signing their paychecks and hobnobbing with the President”. “It’s a dark day in the halls of CBS News”.

 

When Weiss made it clear she intends to go after what she called illiberalism (rejecting the core principles of liberal democracy) on the right and the left, Rather responded, “There can be no equivalences drawn between the two political extremes in this country, especially when one extreme is led by a man who rarely speaks without lying.”

 

The failure of the media to do its job has become one of the greatest threats to our freedom. CBS News leads the pack with a long history of extreme liberal bias and lies in plain sight.  Earlier this year, CBS settled a lawsuit with Donald Trump for $16 million for editing the October 2024 interview with then presidential candidate Kamala Harris in a manner that made her appear far more articulate than the unedited version.  CBS recently announced they will no longer edit the interviews of guests on Face the Nation after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem cried foul and embarrassed CBS by publishing the unedited version of her Sunday morning interview, allowing viewers to judge for themselves if this is what unbiased reporting looks like.  The list of similar ethical breaches at CBS is long and spans many years.

 

Bari Weiss is a woman who walked away from a prestigious job in a prominent organization because it did not operate with journalistic integrity.  She didn’t whimper off to a corner with her tail tucked between her legs.  She created her own version of what the spirited debate of ideas looks like in a free society.  As she begins her tenure at CBS News, Weiss has articulated clearly and transparently the principles that will guide her leadership. 

 

1. Journalism that reports on the world as it actually is.

2. Journalism that is fair, fearless, and factual.

3. Journalism that respects our audience enough to tell the truth plainly – wherever it leads.

4. Journalism that makes sense of a noisy, confusing world.

5. Journalism that explains things clearly, without pretension or jargon.

6. Journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny.

7. Journalism that embraces a wide spectrum of views and voices so that the audience can contend with the best arguments on all sides of a debate.

8. Journalism that rushes toward the most interesting and important stories, regardless of their unpopularity.

9. Journalism that uses all of the tools of the digital era.

10. Journalism that understands that the best way to serve America is to endeavor to present the public with the facts, first and foremost.

 

These principles will be magnets to journalists who have a moral compass and drive those who are corrupt out of the organization.  It’s starting to feel like the American people are winning.