Bari Weiss Strikes
Although I have to wonder if she is aware of the Streisand Effect?
When the new owners of CBS put Bari Weiss in charge of CBS News, there was quite a bit of concern that she would use the position to further political and ideological goals rather than having fealty to, you know, the news. Well, in addition to putting low-rated interviews on the air, she does seem to be up to some mischief. The NYT reports: ‘60 Minutes’ Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It ‘Political.’
In a move that drew harsh criticism from its own correspondent, CBS News abruptly removed a segment from Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador.
CBS announced the change three hours before the broadcast, a highly unusual last-minute switch. The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment. CBS News said in a statement that the segment would air at a later date and “needed additional reporting.”
But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, rejected that criticism in a private note to CBS colleagues on Sunday, in which she accused CBS News of pulling the segment for “political” reasons.
The entire e-mail can be found here.
One of Ms. Weiss’s suggestions was to include a fresh interview with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, or a similarly high-ranking Trump administration official, two of the people said. Ms. Weiss provided contact information for Mr. Miller to the “60 Minutes” staff.
Ms. Weiss also questioned the use of the term “migrants” to describe the Venezuelan men who were deported, noting that they were in the United States illegally, two of the people said.
In her note, Ms. Alfonsi said that her team had requested comment from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote.
Indeed, how many times in my life have I heard or read a story wherein the reporter notes that they had reached out to X, Y, or Z for comment, but had not received a response? The notion that such a lack of response would stop a story from being run is patently absurd and would, as Alfonsi notes, provide the administration with a veto (and a passive one at that).
Also, the word “migrant” is the appropriate English language word to describe someone who has left one country to move to another one. Legal status is not an issue with the core definition of the term.
Weiss has built her career on the notion that she is some kind of special truth-teller who has the courage to stand up to orthodoxy. But, of course, like many people who shout and complain about how they are censored or “cancelled,” she is really just a shill.
By the way, while I am sure that a CECOT piece on 60 Minutes might have gotten some additional press attention on the topic, there was no better way to draw even more attention to the entire issue than this maneuver. Indeed, from a “keep things as quiet as possible” standpoint, airing the piece on the Sunday before Christmas was probably the best case scenario for having as few people pay real attention as possible. You know, slow news cycle with lots of reporters gearing down for the holidays, people traveling, going to parties, visiting family, etc.
Heckuva job, Bari!
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I can’t remember how much money she supposedly got in this, but it didn’t seem a lump sum. I also remember the number of how many Free Press readers there were, and it was over a 100k. But on social media, some of their HS newspaper reject pieces get around 20 likes, which is about what The Free Press deserves.
She has no talent in any direction, and she’s boring and dumb. I can see them cutting their losses and losing next to nothing as they leak out what a fraud she is. I can see them doubling-down and making her stupid views the new point of CBS, and then as ratings crater, doubling-down again and try to buy CNN or something.
If it wasn’t obvious before that she was a shill for the powerful, her ridiculous University of Austin venture gave up the game.
While it’s satisfying to see a hypocrite and huckster undeniably revealed for what she is, I’m more worried for the people who, according to Alfonsi, risked their lives to tell their story. While the MAGA leadership is an alliance of opportunists, liars, zealots, bigots, sadists, egotists, and other types of misfits, one of their unifying traits of this menagerie is a reckless disregard for the well-being of other human beings.
This is just disgusting. Cronkite must be turning in his grave at the spectacle of his once-great network collaborating with this fascist administration.
@Kingdaddy: The UATX bit was beyond ridiculous and definitely exposed her for what she is.
I will never forget the time, a while after she voluntarily left the NYT while claiming to have been canceled, that Weiss went on CNN and told Brian Stelter a list of things people are “not allowed to say,” and a baffled Stelter pointed out that she was saying those very things right there. But what’s even weirder is that if you do a Google search for references to that interview, you’ll find countless posts about how Stelter got “owned” by her.
A big part of conservative brain rot is an inability to notice contradictions staring them in the face, including an entire cottage industry of people being paid millions to tell their audience how they’re the victims of censorship, something they claim is happening the moment any of their views get challenged, then in the next breath eagerly trying to actually shut down views they don’t like.
I just looked up the numbers I remembered about The Free Press. 150K paid subscribers/1.5 million annual readers. Take those numbers and look at the engagement on their twitter feed. Then look at Talking Points Memo. 35K paid subscribers and Josh’s thing has more engagement by far.
I do think she pulled a Charlie Javice with Paramount, maybe with David Ellison’s understanding and with an outside backer providing the income stream.
I’ve been hard on my friends who dumped CBS over Weiss. Now I see the light. It goes beyond 60 minutes. You see it in Face the Nation, and in CBS evening news, too.
Bari Weiss — not ready for prime time.
Lack of transparency as well as coverups foster rumor and misinformation. They also produce an exaggerated sense of importance for the info being hidden.
Like the Epstein files. I’m 99.99% sure there’s nothing in them that will either greatly damage El Taco, nor prove a major revelation about him. there may be something that will “make him look bad.” Had the files been released over the course of the year as promised, the whole thing would ahve died down by now. The failure to do so led us to the current situation.
@HelloWorld:
Trek leaves Netflix on January 8th or so. I won’t be able to watch the whole run as I intended to. no doubt it will all be on Paramount+. Right now, I’m having a very hard time with the idea of paying them a penny, even for the latest season of Strange New Worlds.
I can’t verify this now or provide a link. It seems the suppressed 60 minutes segment video leaked to a Canadian site, and someone was able to download it before it was taken down. Access Bluesky and search for Marisa Kabas’ feed. The link to the video should be there.
If it is, I expect it to be all over the internet in a few hours.