Bari Weiss

Bari Weiss became editor-in-chief of CBS News in October 2025, following Paramount Skydance's $150 million acquisition of The Free Press, the subscription news publication she had founded in 2021. The appointment placed her — a journalist with no prior broadcast experience — in editorial control of one of America's most established broadcast news divisions, overseeing flagship programmes including 60 Minutes and CBS News Sunday Morning. She reports to Paramount CEO David Ellison.

Weiss began her career as a student activist at Columbia University before working at Haaretz, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, where she was an op-ed editor and writer until she publicly resigned in 2020, citing what she described as political intolerance inside the newsroom. She then built The Free Press — initially called Common Sense — from a Substack newsletter into a VC-backed publication with Marc Andreessen and David Sacks among its backers. She has described herself as a "radical centrist" and a journalist concerned that ideological conformity has suppressed important stories in legacy media.

Weiss's appointment at CBS News is among the most contested editorial decisions in recent US journalism. Supporters argue she brings editorial independence and credibility with audiences alienated by legacy media; critics contend her absence of broadcast experience and her dual role as both publication founder and now broadcaster create structural conflicts. Her transition from subscription-publication entrepreneur to broadcast news editor-in-chief is one of the defining media-ownership stories of the current cycle.