General Discussion

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/anti-trans-queer-journalist-bari-164319943.html

In a move shaking the foundations of American broadcast journalism, Paramount Skydance announced Monday that it has acquired The Free Press, the digital media company founded by out journalist Bari Weiss, and appointed her as the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. The deal, valued at roughly $150 million in cash and stock, brings Weiss’s growing subscriber-driven platform under the same corporate roof as CBS, Showtime, and Paramount, according to CBS News. It also places Weiss, who rose to prominence as a conservative-leaning critic of liberal media culture, at the helm of one of the nation’s oldest and most trusted news brands.

As The Advocate noted in an earlier report, Weiss, who is queer, becomes one of the few out LGBTQ+ leaders to oversee a major national U.S. broadcast newsroom. Weiss, 41, first captured national attention after her 2020 resignation from The New York Times, where she accused the paper of enforcing what she described as “ideological conformity.” She later launched The Free Press in 2021 alongside her wife, Nellie Bowles, and her sister, Suzy Weiss, which became a haven for self-styled “heterodox” thinkers and a lucrative digital media brand championing “free speech” and contrarian opinion.

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison said Weiss will report directly to him, part of what the company calls a “new era of innovation and journalistic independence” at CBS News. “Bari is a proven champion of independent, principled journalism, and I am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News,” Ellison said in a statement, according to NBC News. “This move is part of Paramount’s bigger vision to modernize content and the way it connects — directly and passionately — to audiences around the world.”

Weiss’s appointment, however, has already prompted unease among some CBS staffers, who worry that her reputation for culture-war provocations could shift the network’s editorial tone. Her new role arrives at a time when questions of objectivity, identity, and ideology are defining the media landscape as much as the news itself. Weiss is expected to assume her duties immediately, while The Free Press will continue operating independently under Paramount’s ownership.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss

Weiss has been described as conservative by Haaretz, The Times of Israel, The Daily Dot, and Business Insider. In a 2019 interview with Joe Rogan, she called herself a "left-leaning centrist". According to The Washington Post, Weiss "portrays herself as a liberal uncomfortable with the excesses of left-wing culture" and has sought to "position herself as a reasonable liberal concerned that far-left critiques stifled free speech". Vanity Fair has called Weiss "a provocateur". The Jewish Telegraphic Agency said that her work "doesn't lend itself easily to labels".

The Times of Israel reported that her public fight with The New York Times made her a hero among some conservatives. According to The New York Times, when asked to share something that informed her values at a team retreat, she chose a clip from the show Transparent, which features a trans protagonist. Bari reportedly chose it because "she never wanted to forget the humanity of those with whom she vehemently disagrees".

Weiss has expressed support for Israel and Zionism in her columns. When writer Andrew Sullivan described her as an "unhinged Zionist", she responded that she "happily plead[s] guilty as charged". As of 2024, Weiss had visited Israel over 15 times, including after the October 7 attacks, and compared pro-Israel social media commentators to former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky, whose years in prison made him an icon of the movement to free Jews from the Soviet Union.

In 2018, she said she believed the sexual assault allegations against U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh but questioned whether they should disqualify him from serving on the Supreme Court, because he was 17 when he allegedly assaulted Christine Blasey Ford. After backlash in the press, Weiss conceded that her sound bite was glib and simplistic, and said instead that Kavanaugh's "rage-filled behavior" before the Senate Judiciary Committee should have disqualified him.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Press_(Bari_Weiss_media)

The New York Times described The Free Press as "an unflinching alternative to traditional media organizations." David Klion wrote in The Guardian that Bari Weiss "has used The Free Press to empower rightwing factions within established elite institutions" to suppress progressive and pro-Palestine views. He cited as examples, The Free Press's criticism of NPR and their reporting on the Trump administration investigation into alleged antisemitism at Columbia University.

Conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has criticized The Free Press for what he views as its reluctance to stand up for the free-speech rights of anti-Israel activists. Writing for The New Statesman, the liberal journalist Ross Barkan described the organization as "unapologetically hawkish and anti-Palestinian". The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft described it as "a pro-Israel media outlet often sympathetic to the neoconservative worldview". Politico described it as a "conservative digital media outlet". CNN described it as a "conservative leaning publication".

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