early day

Before arriving at CBS News in October to become editor in chief, Bari Weiss had never been inside a television control room.

But on Tuesday, she presented her plan for taking the storied news division forward after a series of moves that has damaged its standing among viewers, failed to improve ratings, lowered internal morale and generated highly negative press coverage.

Weiss, addressing the staff gathered at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, reached out to those who have not been impressed with what they have seen so far. “I’m not going to stand up here today and ask for your trust,” she said, according to a transcript provided by CBS News. “I’m going to earn it, just like we have to do with our viewers.”

The statement was an acknowledgment that the early days of Weiss’ tenure have not been smooth. Weiss has dealt with her own lack of familiarity with TV news procedures, the entrenched culture of a legacy media institution and suspicion that partisan politics are driving changes. The town hall-style meeting was an attempt at a reset.

Weiss fought the claims that her mandate at CBS News is to provide friendlier coverage to the Trump administration as parent company Paramount pursues an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. She said she has never discussed CBS News coverage of the White House with Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, to whom she reports.

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison attends the premiere of “Ghosted” at AMC Lincoln Square in New York in April 2023.

(Evan Agostini/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

“I’m here to do one thing,” Weiss said. “It’s not to be a mouthpiece for anybody. It’s simply to be a mouthpiece for fairness and the pursuit of truth.”

She told employees her business goal for CBS News is to expand its reach on digital platforms.

“We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are, so they are leaving us,” she said, adding that the network’s strategy until now has been “to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. If we stick to that strategy, we’re toast.”

Weiss said she wants to focus on expanding the most successful CBS News programs — “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning” and true crime magazine “48 Hours” to other platforms, including podcasts, newsletters and live events. “We need to shift to a streaming mentality immediately,” she said, adding that “our competitors are not just the other broadcast networks.

The pronouncement — which could have been made five to 10 years ago — was welcomed by some CBS News employees who believe the operation has lagged in using its resources to expand beyond traditional TV. Overall, they were encouraged by Weiss’ remarks.

“She went a good way to bring people together,” said one attendee. “That was a good start.”

One question posed to Weiss, which is likely to loom over her tenure, is how much time does CBS News have to replace the substantial revenue still generated by traditional TV with digital enterprises. Ad rates for digital platforms are substantially lower than those for TV, which means greater dependence on subscriptions and other revenue sources.

Weiss did not provide any specifics on the level of investment for the new initiatives. “The emphasis going forward is going to be building things that people are ultimately willing to pay for,” she said.

Weiss said the network is recruiting “fresh young talent” that will focus on reporting first through social media, “but will appear everywhere else too.” She showed three recent hires based in London, Kyiv and New York who deliver their stories across different platforms using their iPhones.

Weiss also announced the hiring of 19 new contributors, several of whom have already appeared on the Free Press, the digital news site that CBS News parent Paramount acquired as part of the deal to bring her into the company.

The dependence on contributors, who are not employees but paid for their TV appearances, is commonly used on cable news networks that need to fill hours of programming.

Weiss has acknowledged to colleagues that she’s not familiar with the process of moving the assembly line of stories from the assignment stage, through the reporting and editing process and onto a schedule of programs, some of which run 365 days a year.

Her lack of experience was glaring in her handling of “60 Minutes,” the network’s most prestigious and profitable program. CBS News staffers were stunned when she decided to pull a segment on the abuses at an El Salvador prison used by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants from Venezuela.

“CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil and the network’s chief national correspondent Matt Gutman.

(CBS News)

The story had been researched and reported for months by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi and fully vetted by the standards department when Weiss yanked it one day before its originally scheduled Dec. 21 air date. Alfonsi called the move political and the conflict added to the narrative that Weiss is trying to placate the White House.

Weiss insisted Alfonsi’s story needed more reporting including an interview with an administration official, even though the White House had already declined requests to participate. The segment ran a month later with only minor additions to the reporting which executives inside the news division say was not worth the public drama created by Weiss’ editorial decision.

At the meeting, Weiss acknowledged she would have approached the matter differently but defended her intent.

“It’s always gonna be my prerogative as editor of this newsroom to say that I want more information, and to push to get more information,” she said. “Now, am I ever going to hold something again after it has been put out there with promos? I don’t want to make that exact same decision again, no I do not.”

Weiss added that Paramount management had no influence on her decision to hold Alfonsi’s story. “I wanna just say this as plainly and clearly as possible,” she said. “I was not pressured by David Ellison or anyone else.”

She said the journalism standards at the network have not changed since she arrived, but believed the division has been more welcoming to a wider range of viewpoints.

“I don’t think a year ago CBS News would’ve had [former National Rifle Assn. spokesperson] Dana Loesch, let’s say, on the morning show,” Weiss said. “I think that’s something to be proud of.”

Weiss praised the revamped “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil” — with a new anchor she handpicked, even though critics have been harsh and the ratings have slipped. All three of the major network evening newscasts are down in January compared to a year ago, but CBS is off the most at around 20%.

Segments on the program, such as Dokoupil’s frothy tribute to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a brief item on the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington that had President Trump calling it the fault of the Capitol police, were widely panned. But the attention has died down as the program has settled into being a straight-ahead newscast.

While the fiascoes involving “60 Minutes” or the first week of the “CBS Evening News” have been demoralizing, some journalists in the division are still hopeful Weiss can be a catalyst for change and want her to succeed.

But her rocky start will be tough to turn around according to Tom Bettag, a former network news producer who is now a lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

“Weiss started off so miserably with ’60 Minutes’ and the Dokoupil launch, that you wonder if she can redeem herself,” Bettag said. “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

Weiss isn’t the first executive to be put in charge of a TV news operation without any hands-on experience. It was not easy for the others, either.

Michael Gartner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor was appointed to oversee NBC News in the mid-1980s. During his turbulent five-year tenure, he struggled with talent egos as he tried to get costs under control. Walter Isaacson came from Time magazine to run CNN in 2001. He was gone after 18 months, expressing bewilderment over the public scrutiny of every network move.

Weiss’ previous management experience was running the Free Press, which has a staff of 60 compared to the sprawling CBS News operation with more than 1,200 employees around the world.

Weiss is also an anomaly as she comes to the job with an established point of view. Her journalism career was as an opinion writer before she launched the Free Press. The site gained a following for its criticism of the progressive left and purveyors of so-called “woke” policies.

Weiss has been vocal in telling CBS News employees that the public has less trust in legacy media, an assertion that is often pushed by Trump and his supporters. (She told the meeting that the network needs to target “independents … those who want to equip themselves with all the facts, who are curious to hear what’s going on, even if it offends their sensibilities.”)

Weiss carries that agenda while she tries to overcome the whispers of “she’s not one of us” at CBS News, which even loyal insiders believe leans too heavily on its storied history defined by 20th century journalism icons such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.

“I think this place has allowed the ghosts of the past to walk these halls a little too much,” one CBS News journalist said. “They need to be acknowledged, but not obsessed over every day. The New York Yankees don’t sit around dwelling on Babe Ruth every day. They focus on winning.”

While “60 Minutes” and “CBS Evening News” are the editorial backbone of the division and are getting the bulk of Weiss’ attention, the division also has to chart a future course for “CBS Mornings,” a major revenue generator. Co-host Gayle King’s contract is up in May and last year there were leaks to an industry trade suggesting that Paramount wants her to return in another role and presumably a lower salary.

“CBS Mornings” is in third place behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today,” but still has a following and King is the most recognizable star in the news division. Morning show viewing is habitual and a change in the host chair could lead King’s fans to abandon the program. Once viewers leave, it’s hard to get them back, especially in today’s fragmented media environment where consumers have a seemingly endless array of alternatives.

At the town hall, Weiss gave a positive shout-out to King, who is angry over the press reports. “I’ve had people come and pet me like a puppy and say, ‘I’m sorry that you’re leaving CBS, I won’t watch those guys anymore,’” King said.

“I just want everyone here to know that she’s absolutely beloved,” Weiss said. “And we see her long into the future here at CBS.”

People close to the morning program who were not authorized to comment publicly believe King would return for another contract. But the network is already preparing for the future if King does depart.

Adriana Diaz and Kelly O’Grady were named co-hosts of “CBS Saturday Morning” and will be the principal fill-ins for King on the weekday program, clearly an attempt to get them familiar with the audience. “It’s a very explicit attempt to start building a bench,” said one insider.

Before the town hall meeting on Tuesday, many CBS News veterans were frustrated that Weiss had not addressed the entire division during the first three months of her tenure. King, who told colleagues she was impressed overall with the presentation, told Weiss they needed to meet sooner.

“For many people — they’ve never even heard your freakin’ voice,” King said. “So it’s good to hear, to see you’re a real person and this is what you want.”