"The new owners brought in Bari Weiss to shake things up and change the direction of the news division toward a wider (read: younger) audience. And Bari Weiss brought in Nick Bilton, who has strong media chops in the documentary, investigative, and digital space. But Scott Pelley didn’t like Bilton’s pedigree (or his politics, apparently)."
The new owners (David and Larry Ellison - not mentioned once in this article) brought in Bari Weiss to make CBS palatable to an audience of one: Donald Trump. This is important to the Ellisons as they are attempting to build a consolidated media empire in a big way: Paramount wants to merge with Warner Bros. and acquire assets such as the entertainment division (the movie studio, DC Comics, and who knows what else) AND the cable properties (CNN, TNT, TBS, etc.).
It's also important to note that the Ellisons are the ones who received control of TikTok, when the US law explicitly shut it down.
It's also worth noting that the Ellisons are neck-deep in the current AI build out[1] and have SIGNIFICANT exposure to the ups and downs in how that plays out. It's important to the Ellisons that if the AI bubble pops tomorrow, that there's some form of gov't bailout to keep them from losing their entire empire (built on the foundation of the Oracle database software).
Appointing Bari "Dangerous Ideas" Weiss to run CBS has nothing to do with building new or larger audiences (CBS's ratings are in the toilet after the Colbert firing), but to play BS oligarch games to win and maintain an advantageous position with the current administration (including their attack dog in the FCC, Brendan Carr) to win contracts (such as the Stargate one) and protect their investments that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Jonah Goldberg has a tendency to refuse to see the forest for the trees when it lets him reinforce his priors (rich elites pissing down on the proles), but you should really be reading Jonathan V. Last on this topic.[2]
Also, kudos for Pelley for standing up for his fellow 60 Minutes staff who had been fired the week before without any reason given. That's what kicked off this whole fiasco.[1]
There is no evidence of that other than the political stance of the beholder. Bari Weiss is not a MAGA princess. She’s not a Trump sycophant. And companies have lined up to curry favor with sitting presidents since 1803. If there is an argument it might be Weiss is not as far left as the network has been. But that in itself doesn’t mean CBS is turning into Newsmax.
The goal isn't to turn CBS into Newsmax - the goal is to neuter any reporting that CBS might do into the Trump administration. We saw this dynamic play out already when Weiss tried to hide the investigative work 60 Minutes was doing about the Trump administration deporting people to El Salvador's CECOT prison.[1]
The goal is to sideline the critics and reporters who might say something negative about all the negative crap this administration is doing. It's not to put another news organization into the Newsmax / OANN lane.
It's also about turning CBS into a mouthpiece for "allied" regimes, such as when Weiss sidelined Lesley Stahl - who had been setting up an interview with Netanyahu, and allowing the Bibi to choose an alternative interviewer who wouldn't have gone as hard on him as the interviewing veteran Stahl.[1]
I found the article unusual at best. 60 minutes has been and remained a stalwart across the country. I get it, those right leaning trumpian's hate it. The stories pulled by Weiss are telling and quickly noted were ignored by Steve.
Pelley's remarks walking out the door said it all. But hell, Steve knows better because Pelley made too much money as a highly rated journalist. Go figure.
I guess we'll see as they move forward and whether they cater to the trump/ellison crowd. I know where my money is.
Just as a primer: CBS is a business. Its news operation is a business. It operates on ad revenue based on eyeballs. Everything CBS has done is a business decision. You may not agree with their decisions but they do it in service of an audience they want to attract not the audience they already have. There is an element of duty to the truth but we have already seen 60 Minutes ignore that part.
"You may not agree with their decisions but they do it in service of an audience they want to attract not the audience they already have."
If this were true and CBS was an organization that had to stand on its own (as opposed to being something to buy off the administration by firing Colbert and decapitating 60 Minutes), Weiss wouldn't be anywhere near the organization and the company would have hired someone with some actual experience in investigative journalism and broadcast media, and not some glorified Substacker.
If you think I'm wrong, name one successful initiative from the Free Press that built a new audience beyond the vapid contrarianism of the "Intellectual Dark Web". The Bulwark or even The Daily Wire would have been better choices than The Free Press, where they're pulling in new audiences on platforms like YouTube.
CBS is being sacrificed to Trump (and Brendan Carr) so that the rest of the Ellison empire can thrive.
If memory serves me Steve, you follow/read The Bulwark and in particular JVL. The link provided by Chris above and said article was exceptional. While JVL is admittedly a never trumper, his roots to his conservatism are real. He is also, in my opinion, one of the finest writers i have ever read.
I won't try and argue your remarks other than to post this portion from his column: "Part of the show’s success was economic. 60 Minutes didn’t just produce outstanding journalism—it made money. It proved that good journalism could succeed on TV and didn’t need to be regarded as a charity or a loss-leader. In 2024, just as a for-instance, 60 Minutes made $206 million in advertising.
Because of this industry-leading success, the show has always been allowed to run independently within the organization that is CBS News. 60 Minutes was its own beast, a state within a state. The show’s independence was such a big deal that when CBS corporate interfered with it in the 1990s, the whole world took notice and Michael Mann made a big-budget movie about the incident."
I get it, your column today had an interesting attachment to the same way EE forges/recreates logic from thin air. The ellsion/weiss/trump attachment has been an ongoing project that has been detailed and documented for nearly the past year. Pretending it's for any other reason is just that; pretending.
I guess time will tell which argument is accurate.
I personally have a view that if new ownership comes in, or even just a new leader of an organization, you can either get on board and ride for the brand.
Or leave and find a new brand. It’s honestly usually that simple.
Even if you are superstar like Tom Brady, sometimes you just have to go find a new team. 🤷🏻♂️
I get that he was mad about the firings, But I do feel they were trying to work with him, and he just overplayed his hand. And anytime that happens, the new leader, or owner of an organization has to take a scalp.
Well, I don’t know how far left a network has to be to qualify as “ hard left” - (Maybe advocate for immediate private property confiscation?) You mentioned MSNOW, etc. NPR, not a television network I know, seems to be a blend of far left and far right, seeing its president said “ the truth gets in the way of important things we are trying to do.” And I don’t think its journalists ever met a conservative they did not slam or an Islamist they did not sympathise with. As for Roger Stone, he is OK in my book. After the FBI night swat team raid at his home (he had no previous arrests, no threats ever) and the months long prison term he received for refusing to lie to get himself off, he deserves a break. Plus he writes interesting articles. But Scott Pelly? Yuk! Goodbye Mr. Hypocrite… Remember you must put your pants on one leg at a time Scott- just like the rest of us.
Oh come on. Even if Weiss has a vision for modernizing the show, she is certainly not one who inspires others to come along. Most of the gobbledygook I've read from her shake up statements lack clarity and seem designed to put people off. Don't know if that's by design or that's just her. In the Trump era, rudeness and bullying are the way to inspire (See Stephen Miller)? Who knows what all the chaos is about these days. Didn't Weiss get $150 million for her online thing? Even Pelley's $5 million annually in New York City is not top dollar journalism. Gayle King is making more than that. But how Pelley does financially is not really the question. Come on, these anti-DEIs aren't up to the job. It's like hiring Hegseth to sin a war.
We who are not inside Paramount Skydance management do not get a vote on who's vision they trust, and who is effective. If Weiss fails, it's on them, not us. For that, I am thankful.
"The new owners brought in Bari Weiss to shake things up and change the direction of the news division toward a wider (read: younger) audience. And Bari Weiss brought in Nick Bilton, who has strong media chops in the documentary, investigative, and digital space. But Scott Pelley didn’t like Bilton’s pedigree (or his politics, apparently)."
The new owners (David and Larry Ellison - not mentioned once in this article) brought in Bari Weiss to make CBS palatable to an audience of one: Donald Trump. This is important to the Ellisons as they are attempting to build a consolidated media empire in a big way: Paramount wants to merge with Warner Bros. and acquire assets such as the entertainment division (the movie studio, DC Comics, and who knows what else) AND the cable properties (CNN, TNT, TBS, etc.).
It's also important to note that the Ellisons are the ones who received control of TikTok, when the US law explicitly shut it down.
It's also worth noting that the Ellisons are neck-deep in the current AI build out[1] and have SIGNIFICANT exposure to the ups and downs in how that plays out. It's important to the Ellisons that if the AI bubble pops tomorrow, that there's some form of gov't bailout to keep them from losing their entire empire (built on the foundation of the Oracle database software).
Appointing Bari "Dangerous Ideas" Weiss to run CBS has nothing to do with building new or larger audiences (CBS's ratings are in the toilet after the Colbert firing), but to play BS oligarch games to win and maintain an advantageous position with the current administration (including their attack dog in the FCC, Brendan Carr) to win contracts (such as the Stargate one) and protect their investments that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Jonah Goldberg has a tendency to refuse to see the forest for the trees when it lets him reinforce his priors (rich elites pissing down on the proles), but you should really be reading Jonathan V. Last on this topic.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_LLC
[2] https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-murder-of-60-minutes
Also, kudos for Pelley for standing up for his fellow 60 Minutes staff who had been fired the week before without any reason given. That's what kicked off this whole fiasco.[1]
[1] https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/scott-pelley-60-minutes-cbs-meeting/
There is no evidence of that other than the political stance of the beholder. Bari Weiss is not a MAGA princess. She’s not a Trump sycophant. And companies have lined up to curry favor with sitting presidents since 1803. If there is an argument it might be Weiss is not as far left as the network has been. But that in itself doesn’t mean CBS is turning into Newsmax.
The goal isn't to turn CBS into Newsmax - the goal is to neuter any reporting that CBS might do into the Trump administration. We saw this dynamic play out already when Weiss tried to hide the investigative work 60 Minutes was doing about the Trump administration deporting people to El Salvador's CECOT prison.[1]
The goal is to sideline the critics and reporters who might say something negative about all the negative crap this administration is doing. It's not to put another news organization into the Newsmax / OANN lane.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g-s1-103282/cbs-chief-bari-weiss-pulls-60-minutes-story
I am not the only one with this take.
https://substack.com/inbox/post/200301273?utm_source=unread-posts-digest-email&inbox=true&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
It's also about turning CBS into a mouthpiece for "allied" regimes, such as when Weiss sidelined Lesley Stahl - who had been setting up an interview with Netanyahu, and allowing the Bibi to choose an alternative interviewer who wouldn't have gone as hard on him as the interviewing veteran Stahl.[1]
[1] https://nypost.com/2026/05/12/media/bari-weiss-gave-netanyahu-choice-between-lesley-stahl-major-garrett-for-newsy-60-minutes-interview/
I found the article unusual at best. 60 minutes has been and remained a stalwart across the country. I get it, those right leaning trumpian's hate it. The stories pulled by Weiss are telling and quickly noted were ignored by Steve.
Pelley's remarks walking out the door said it all. But hell, Steve knows better because Pelley made too much money as a highly rated journalist. Go figure.
I guess we'll see as they move forward and whether they cater to the trump/ellison crowd. I know where my money is.
Just as a primer: CBS is a business. Its news operation is a business. It operates on ad revenue based on eyeballs. Everything CBS has done is a business decision. You may not agree with their decisions but they do it in service of an audience they want to attract not the audience they already have. There is an element of duty to the truth but we have already seen 60 Minutes ignore that part.
Also, if CBS were being run as a business, it wouldn't have settled with Donald Trump for $16 million in a lawsuit was on track to handily winning[1].
This is Orbán-flavored authoritarian nonsense all the way down.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/trump-media-harris-minutes-paramount-6415042fe910ae60b432dd8c73ef61b2
"You may not agree with their decisions but they do it in service of an audience they want to attract not the audience they already have."
If this were true and CBS was an organization that had to stand on its own (as opposed to being something to buy off the administration by firing Colbert and decapitating 60 Minutes), Weiss wouldn't be anywhere near the organization and the company would have hired someone with some actual experience in investigative journalism and broadcast media, and not some glorified Substacker.
If you think I'm wrong, name one successful initiative from the Free Press that built a new audience beyond the vapid contrarianism of the "Intellectual Dark Web". The Bulwark or even The Daily Wire would have been better choices than The Free Press, where they're pulling in new audiences on platforms like YouTube.
CBS is being sacrificed to Trump (and Brendan Carr) so that the rest of the Ellison empire can thrive.
If memory serves me Steve, you follow/read The Bulwark and in particular JVL. The link provided by Chris above and said article was exceptional. While JVL is admittedly a never trumper, his roots to his conservatism are real. He is also, in my opinion, one of the finest writers i have ever read.
I won't try and argue your remarks other than to post this portion from his column: "Part of the show’s success was economic. 60 Minutes didn’t just produce outstanding journalism—it made money. It proved that good journalism could succeed on TV and didn’t need to be regarded as a charity or a loss-leader. In 2024, just as a for-instance, 60 Minutes made $206 million in advertising.
Because of this industry-leading success, the show has always been allowed to run independently within the organization that is CBS News. 60 Minutes was its own beast, a state within a state. The show’s independence was such a big deal that when CBS corporate interfered with it in the 1990s, the whole world took notice and Michael Mann made a big-budget movie about the incident."
I get it, your column today had an interesting attachment to the same way EE forges/recreates logic from thin air. The ellsion/weiss/trump attachment has been an ongoing project that has been detailed and documented for nearly the past year. Pretending it's for any other reason is just that; pretending.
I guess time will tell which argument is accurate.
Thanks for the piece, brother.
It helps add some perspective.
I personally have a view that if new ownership comes in, or even just a new leader of an organization, you can either get on board and ride for the brand.
Or leave and find a new brand. It’s honestly usually that simple.
Even if you are superstar like Tom Brady, sometimes you just have to go find a new team. 🤷🏻♂️
I get that he was mad about the firings, But I do feel they were trying to work with him, and he just overplayed his hand. And anytime that happens, the new leader, or owner of an organization has to take a scalp.
That’s just the way it is.
Well, I don’t know how far left a network has to be to qualify as “ hard left” - (Maybe advocate for immediate private property confiscation?) You mentioned MSNOW, etc. NPR, not a television network I know, seems to be a blend of far left and far right, seeing its president said “ the truth gets in the way of important things we are trying to do.” And I don’t think its journalists ever met a conservative they did not slam or an Islamist they did not sympathise with. As for Roger Stone, he is OK in my book. After the FBI night swat team raid at his home (he had no previous arrests, no threats ever) and the months long prison term he received for refusing to lie to get himself off, he deserves a break. Plus he writes interesting articles. But Scott Pelly? Yuk! Goodbye Mr. Hypocrite… Remember you must put your pants on one leg at a time Scott- just like the rest of us.
Oh come on. Even if Weiss has a vision for modernizing the show, she is certainly not one who inspires others to come along. Most of the gobbledygook I've read from her shake up statements lack clarity and seem designed to put people off. Don't know if that's by design or that's just her. In the Trump era, rudeness and bullying are the way to inspire (See Stephen Miller)? Who knows what all the chaos is about these days. Didn't Weiss get $150 million for her online thing? Even Pelley's $5 million annually in New York City is not top dollar journalism. Gayle King is making more than that. But how Pelley does financially is not really the question. Come on, these anti-DEIs aren't up to the job. It's like hiring Hegseth to sin a war.
We who are not inside Paramount Skydance management do not get a vote on who's vision they trust, and who is effective. If Weiss fails, it's on them, not us. For that, I am thankful.
Covers the bits few others have covered (Except maybe Shellenberger).