Bari Weiss – Media Nation

Bringing CBS News and CNN under one Trump-friendly roof is a disaster for freedom of the press

David Ellison, right, and his billionaire father, Larry Ellison, are now calling the shots at two major news organizations — CBS News and CNN. Photo in the public domain.

My students and I were talking this morning about press freedoms in the U.S. and in other Western democracies. How, I asked, could countries like Britain, Canada, Germany and France ensure such freedoms in the absence of something like the First Amendment?

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The answer is that they can’t, at least not as comprehensively as we do. Libel protections and the right to publish information about criminal trials, government secrets and the like are in fact more robust here than they are in other countries. Yet according to the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, the U.S. ranks just 64th, behind Botswana but ahead of Panama. Norway is No. 1.

How can this be? A large part of the explanation came Monday, when the last remaining legal opposition to Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery melted away, transforming two behemoths into one super-behemoth. Nearly all of this corrupt (as in the sense of rotting flesh, not whether it’s legal) transaction involves entertainment properties, which is where the money is. But what many of us really care about is that CNN is moving under the same corporate umbrella as CBS News.

Continue reading “Bringing CBS News and CNN under one Trump-friendly roof is a disaster for freedom of the press”

‘60 Minutes’ is back — and so is ‘Beat the Press.’ We were watching, and here’s what we thought.

*Click here or on image to watch “Beat the Press” on Contrarian Boston.*

“60 Minutes” made its fall debut on Sunday, and so did “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney.” We watched to see what clues we could discern over how executive producer Nick Bilton and CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss would remake the venerable newsmagazine program, which first slipped into view 58 years ago.

I don’t want to speak for my fellow panelists, but I thought it was solid if unspectacular. The first segment, on the secretive rescue of an American pilot from Iran, couldn’t have happened without the active cooperation of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. But since when have the networks not engaged in access journalism? The story, hosted by Norah O’Donnell, was harrowing, even if my friend Danny Schechter would have derided it as “militainment” if he were still with us.

Continue reading “‘60 Minutes’ is back — and so is ‘Beat the Press.’ We were watching, and here’s what we thought.”

Friends don’t let friends watch cable news. So why is the fate of CNN vital to democracy?

Labor Day is behind us, summer is starting to wane and it’s time to start thinking about what media news will keep us up at night this fall. From the standpoint of my research interests and my personal passions, the ongoing crisis in local journalism looms as the most important storyline.

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In terms of immediate threats and what it means for our democracy, though, I would identify the possibility (if not the likelihood) that Paramount will absorb CNN into its empire as the story we need to keep the closest eye on.

Continue reading “Friends don’t let friends watch cable news. So why is the fate of CNN vital to democracy?”

Bari Weiss strikes again, hiring the incredibly boring Ross Douthat as a ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent

*Ross Douthat. Photo via The New York Times YouTube channel.*

I had to laugh when I read New York Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury’s praise for columnist Ross Douthat, who’s leaving the Times to take a job at “60 Minutes”:

Katie Kingsbury, the opinion editor at The Times, said in a memo to her staff that Mr. Douthat made the case for “a religiously serious, intellectually restless conservatism.”

“He was right about things early, wrong about things honestly and never, not once, boring,” she added.

Douthat is incredibly boring, and I find it hard to imagine that Kingsbury disagrees. I also doubt she’ll have much trouble finding a more engaging conservative to replace Douthat if that’s what she wants to do. She might consider Kevin Williamson of The Dispatch, who, like Douthat, is a conservative Catholic, and whose recent takedown (sub. req.) of JD Vance’s book “Communion” is both hilarious and devastating.

As for Douthat, I thought perhaps CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton were planning to use him as a commentator. Nope. He’ll be a full-fledged correspondent, despite having no television experience and, as far as I know, no reporting background.

Tara Henley’s ‘The Trust Cycle’ is a provocative but flawed look at what’s wrong with the media

*Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunt discredited the just-the-facts model of journalistic objectivity. Photo via the Encyclopedia Britannica.*

On Nov. 21, 1954, Palmer Hoyt strode to the podium at the University of Arizona to accept the John Peter Zenger Freedom of the Press Award. Hoyt, the editor and publisher of The Denver Post, was being honored for his courage in standing up to Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist witch hunt — a notable exception to the timidity shown by much of the press in tangling with the Republican senator from Wisconsin.

Hoyt used the occasion to call out publishers who had enabled McCarthy’s campaign of lies and character assassination. As quoted in Bill Hosokawa’s 1976 book, “Thunder in the Rockies,” an authorized history of the Post, Hoyt told his audience, “It is true that the number of newspapers critical of McCarthy has grown during the last year or two. But there are still many of them who are his supporters, his apologists, even his devotees.” Moreover, he denounced McCarthy’s journalistic toadies for being “as short-sighted as they are self-destructive.”

The larger target of Hoyt’s disdain was the notion of journalistic objectivity, or at least a certain definition of that much-used and much-abused term.

Read the rest at The Arts Fuse.

On the brand-new ‘Beat the Press,’ we try to make sense of the implosion of ‘60 Minutes’

*Click here or on image to watch on Contrarian Boston.*

On the latest episode of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we take a long look at the implosion of “60 Minutes,” the 58-year-old CBS News staple that has been torn apart by Bari Weiss and her choice to run the program, Nick Bilton.

Why did CBS executives fire Scott Pelley? What are we to make of Pelley’s claim in a New York Times interview that Weiss tried to inject bias and at least one falsehood into his report on the killings of Minneapolis protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents? What’s next for “60 Minutes,” which not only continues to be a ratings leader but actually grew over the past year? Does the new Trump-friendly owner, David Ellison, care about any of this?

Also: World Cup watch parties and our panel’s Rants and Raves. With Emily in the moderator’s chair; our host, Scott Van Voorhis of Contrarian Boston; Lylah Alphonse of The Boston Globe, and me. Our producer extraordinaire is Tonia Magras of Hull Bay Productions.

Extra! Extra! What would Andy think? Check out this special edition of “Beat the Press” in which Emily and her brother, Brian Rooney, talk about how their legendary father would be reacting to the meltdown of “60 Minutes.”

The evisceration of ‘60 Minutes’ greases the skids for David Ellison’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery

Nicholas von Hoffman and James Kilpatrick debate the fate of Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal in 1973.

I’m nearly 70, and I’ve never been a regular viewer of “60 Minutes.” I think of it as a show that my parents watched. Still, the dismantling of the highly rated program at the hands of David Ellison’s designated flunky, Bari Weiss, and her designated flunky, Nick Bilton, has been alarming for anyone who cares about investigative journalism — or, for that matter, democracy.

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I had to laugh at the clueless outrage of conservative commentators over Scott Pelley’s wonderfully hostile confrontation with Bilton. “When a child throws a tantrum, they’re punished,” clucked Isaac Schorr at Mediaite. “When a journalist throws a tantrum, they wait to be called stunning and brave.”

Continue reading “The evisceration of ‘60 Minutes’ greases the skids for David Ellison’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery”

On the latest ‘Beat the Press,’ we look at war coverage, a Trump-friendly media monopoly, AI and more

On the brand-new edition of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we analyze media coverage of the war against Iran.

In other topics, we examine the implications of Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which will put CNN in the hands of Trump-friendly executives Larry and David Ellison, and the failure of Bari Weiss — who may soon be running CNN in addition to CBS News — to hang on to a Jeffrey Epstein associate. We also give the hairy eyeball to AI’s ongoing encroachment into journalism and weigh in with our Rants and Raves.

“Beat the Press” is hosted by Scott Van Voorhis’ newsletter, Contrarian Boston. With Emily, Scott, Lylah Alphonse of The Boston Globe and me, expertly produced by Tonia Magras of Hull Bay Productions.

‘Beat the Press’ takes on ‘CBS Evening News’ anchor Tony Dokoupil’s embarrassing debut

The newly revived “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” is back with its second story.

This time around, Emily, Scott Van Voorhis and I take on Tony Dokoupil’s embarrassing debut as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” Dokoupil has, among other things, both-sides-ed the unprovoked killing of Renee Good at the hands of ICE agent Jonathan Ross, sucked up to Marco Rubio, and interviewed White House border czar Tom Homan while failing to ask him about the brown paper bag with $50,000 cash inside.

Bari Weiss must be so proud. You can watch at Contrarian Boston, the newsletter that Scott hosts at Substack.

Watch it while you can: Yashar Ali has posted a broadcast-quality version of that ‘60 Minutes’ report

Click on the image to watch “Inside CECOT.”

We have reached the let’s-hope-Canada-beams-in-news-that’s-being-censored-in-our-own-country stage of authoritarianism.

On Monday afternoon, the “60 Minutes” story on mostly Venezuelan detainees being sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador — canceled by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss — popped up on Canada’s Global TV app. It was taken down a short time later because of copyright issues, but it’s been showing up here and there on social media ever since. I’m hoping this broadcast-quality version, on Yashar Ali’s newsletter, The Reset, will stick around for a while.

As you’ll see, detainees, many of whom have not been accused of any crime other than being in the U.S. illegally, say there were subjected to beatings, torture and sexual abuse during their time in the CECOT prison. As for Weiss’ complaint that the story did not include any comment from the Trump regime, here’s what we hear toward the end of Sharyn Alfonsi’s report:

The Department of Homeland Security declined our request for an interview and referred all questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The government there did not respond to our request.

We’ve been having a debate on Facebook over whether it’s fair to say that Weiss “canceled” the story given that she has said she wants to run it after it’s re-edited. I contend that it was canceled, not delayed, because it was scheduled to run on Sunday evening and it wasn’t. Also, Weiss has made it clear that if the story does run, it won’t be what you see here.

As Alfonsi said, to cancel the story for lack of White House comment even though they were given an opportunity to weigh in is to hand a “veto” to the very officials that “60 Minutes” was trying to hold to account. As I tell my students, you need to give people you’re reporting on a fair chance to respond — but you can’t let it drag on for so long that their silence is used to kill the story.