(AURN News) — Barely a month into her new role as editor in chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss is already making her mark on the network.
“She’s made her presence very well known,” said Oliver Darcy, founder of the media newsletter Status.
“She’s been active on editorial calls and during newsroom meetings,” he told AURN News.
Darcy, who first reported that new Paramount owner David Ellison recruited Weiss for the role, said her early decisions signal a clear direction.
“I reported last night that she’s working on finding the next CBS Evening News anchor,” he said.
“She has her eyes, at least, on one person — Fox News’s Bret Baier,” Darcy added. “And I think what that indicates is that they are going to push this company into waters that are friendlier to Trump.”
That possible shift, Darcy warned, could reshape CBS’s coverage at a time when the network’s owner and his family are being openly praised by President Trump.
“If you pay attention to what Donald Trump is saying, he’s constantly lavishing praise on the Ellison family,” Darcy explained. “I get the sense he is very closely watching programs like 60 Minutes and CBS News.”
Weiss, long known as a polarizing figure in journalism, has made clear that she wants to “both sides” major political stories. Darcy believes that approach risks confusing balance with false equivalence.
“I think she’ll allow for some tough coverage of Donald Trump,” he said. “But she wants an equal amount of time to be spent on Democrats and on what she sees as the excesses of the left. And I think in this moment, that doesn’t really work because the two sides are not equal.”
Darcy also sees Weiss’s arrival as part of a larger shift in the industry — one where commentary is often mistaken for reporting.
“Most of Fox News is just talk radio but with video,” he said. “It’s commentary coming from a MAGA direction. Their mission is not to deliver truth to audiences as they know it, but to deliver red meat to an audience that hungers for their right-wing worldview to be enforced.”
Those who have highly favorable views of Fox News often argue that MSNBC does the same thing. AURN News asked Darcy about this comparison. He said that while MSNBC is opinionated, it “does a lot more fact-based news in the afternoons” and features progressive commentators who “were very critical of Joe Biden and whether he should be in the race.”
As social media and podcasts compete with legacy outlets, Darcy said the very definition of “the media” has fragmented.
“News means a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” he said. “It can mean Fox News, it can mean The New York Times. It means anywhere you might be getting information or entertainment.”
For now, all eyes are on Weiss’s next move at CBS. “Paying attention to 60 Minutes is going to be important,” Darcy said. “Are they going to continue providing hard-hitting reporting on Donald Trump? Is it going to soften at all? That’s really what I’m paying attention to at the moment. And The CBS Evening News — what happens there?”
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