John Oliver took the opportunity on Sunday’s episode of “Last Week Tonight” to do a deep dive on Bari Weiss, the opinion journalist and co-founder of the Free Press who is now the editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Paramount, the parent company of CBS which recently merged with David Ellison’s Skydance, announced last week that it would acquire Weiss’ Free Press and that she would lead the broadcaster’s newsroom. The decision raised eyebrows as Weiss is known for her contrarian takes and, as Oliver underlined, does not have much experience in hard news.
“She’s been given editorial control of a massive news organization even though she’s never run a TV network, has no experience directing television coverage and, as one ’60 Minutes’ producer pointed out, is not even a reporter,” Oliver said. “That is true. She didn’t come up through the news side of a newspaper but through the opinion pages, which are a very different thing.”
Oliver then dissected her publication, the Free Press, which he said enforces a “pronounced theme” that “the left has gone too far.”
“Basically whatever issue you feel that is true for — Israel, campus politics, DEI or police reform — you’ll find articles there to reinforce your opinion,” he said. “And look, I’m not saying the left never goes too far or that it’s immune from criticism at all. But it can sometimes feel like the Free Press’ conclusions can get out ahead of its evidence, which brings us to the fact that some of its pieces can be pretty poorly fact-checked, and in ways that feel important.”
Though Oliver said that “there are many opinion-heavy outlets out there” — of which “Last Week Tonight” is one — he acknowledged that his show is “not the news.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone who led a pure opinion outlet, not even one that I happened to agree with, to suddenly be running CBS News,” he said. “But it is especially alarming to have someone doing it who has spent years putting out work that, in my opinion, is at best irresponsible and at worst deeply misleading.”
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Oliver then took aim at Paramount Skydance CEO Ellison, who recently also expressed interest in acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery — though it was reported over the weekend that his bid was rejected for being too low.
“It is not just about Bari Weiss being at CBS, it’s about the fact that CBS is now under the control of someone who thinks that she, and her editorial sensibility, make her a good fit for the job,” he said. “And who, incidentally, is reportedly preparing a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, home of CNN and — uh oh — HBO. Which isn’t ideal, although I’ve gotta say, if what he likes about Bari is that she forces him to have hard conversations that get a bit uncomfortable, maybe he’ll like this.”
Oliver continued: “But the thing is, it’s not just about Ellison either. Again, he’s just the latest in a string of billionaires who have taken over our journalistic institutions, from the Washington Post to the L.A. Times, and started making worrying changes. And whatever complaints I might have had with their coverage before, and I have had plenty, my solution would never have been this. Because when these takeovers get announced, it’s easy to think, ‘Well, thank goodness there are other outlets that aren’t under some billionaire’s influence.’ And that is true, because there is always another. Until there suddenly isn’t.”
Oliver admitted that he doesn’t “know what is going to happen next” and it’s possible that Weiss could “completely reshape CBS News.”
“But it is worth keeping an eye out for subtle changes there. Because while I’m sure many of CBS’ good journalists will continue to do good work, if you start seeing people resigning or getting fired or you start seeing stories that seem off in some way — especially if it involves the left going too far on a topic Bari Weiss cares about — it’s worth asking yourself why that might be,” Oliver concluded. “Because unfortunately, the much bigger answer might be that a billionaire has chosen to inject contrarian, right-leaning opinion journalism into an American icon.”
Watch Oliver’s segment below.
John Oliver on Bari Weiss: “She’s been given editorial control of a massive news organization, even though she’s never run a TV network, has no experience directing television coverage, and as one 60 Minutes producer pointed out, is not even a reporter.”
Plays clip of Weiss… pic.twitter.com/Kmqb8ShWLH
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From Variety US