On October 6, 2025, a seismic shift rippled through the American media landscape: Paramount announced it had acquired The Free Press for $150 million and appointed its founder, Bari Weiss, as editor-in-chief at CBS News. This move, orchestrated by Paramount CEO David Ellison, has sent shockwaves through the newsroom and beyond, sparking fierce debate about the future of one of the country’s oldest and most trusted news organizations.
For many inside and outside CBS News, the announcement was more than just a corporate shakeup. It signaled a new editorial direction, raising urgent questions about journalistic independence, political influence, and the boundaries between opinion and reporting. The timing couldn’t have been more fraught: CBS News, already reeling from the aftershocks of the Skydance-Paramount merger—which required approval from the Trump administration’s FCC—has endured a series of blows in recent months. The network paid Donald Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, saw the resignation of its longtime 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens (who lamented he had “lost the independence that honest journalism requires”), canceled Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, and is now preparing for layoffs that could affect up to 10% of its workforce, according to NPR.
Against this backdrop, Bari Weiss’s arrival has been anything but quiet. Known for her vocal criticism of what she calls the “illiberalism” of progressive institutions and her championing of “anti-woke” perspectives, Weiss has built The Free Press into a platform with a distinctly ideological flavor—heavy on pro-Israel commentary, skeptical of progressive politics, and unafraid to wade into America’s most contentious culture wars. But as critics are quick to note, her background is rooted in opinion writing and editing, not investigative journalism or broadcast news.
Dan Rather, the venerable former anchor of CBS Evening News, didn’t mince words in his public reaction. On October 10, 2025, Rather took to his Substack, Steady, to warn that Weiss’s appointment and the broader changes at CBS News “signal to everyone, especially to the man in the Oval Office, that CBS is no longer independent, but under the tutelage of a conservative billionaire who is putting more than his thumb on the scale.” Rather’s concern wasn’t just about politics—it was about the very soul of journalism. “Rather than doing their jobs as sentinels of democracy, who independently cover the news and hold the powerful accountable, they now have to be concerned about how their pitches, their stories, and their scripts will be received by someone with a clear political agenda,” Rather wrote. He cautioned that, in this environment, “anything that runs afoul of Trump’s agenda may be flagged and is unlikely to be aired unaltered, if aired at all.”
Rather’s words struck a nerve with many CBS News journalists, who are already anxious about their jobs and the future of the network. The pending layoffs, combined with the prospect of reporting to an editor-in-chief without broadcast journalism experience, have left staffers feeling vulnerable and uncertain. Rather painted a somber picture: “It is a dark day in the halls of CBS News, where the portraits of television news pioneers once hung—Cronkite, Murrow, Sevareid, Collingwood. They were journalists who made television a trusted source of information. Whom and what are we to believe today?”
Weiss, for her part, framed her appointment as a response to extremism on both ends of the political spectrum. In a message to Free Press subscribers, she wrote, “If the illiberalism of our institutions has been the story of the last decade, we now face a different form of illiberalism emanating from our fringes. On the one hand, an America-loathing far left. On the other, a history-erasing far right. These extremes do not represent the majority of the country, but they have increasing power in our politics, our culture, and our media ecosystem.”
Yet Rather was quick to challenge this framing, warning that such rhetoric “portends a push for ‘bothsidesism’ and arguments reliant on false equivalences. There can be no equivalences drawn between the two political extremes in this country, especially when one extreme is led by a man who rarely speaks without lying.”
The controversy over Weiss’s journalistic approach isn’t just theoretical. In February 2023, The Free Press published a sensational article by Jamie Reed, a former case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center in St. Louis, alleging improper practices in the care of transgender youth. The piece went viral and prompted immediate investigations by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Senator Josh Hawley. Missouri lawmakers soon passed SB 49, a law banning gender-affirming care for minors, citing Reed’s claims. The Washington University Transgender Center was forced to stop providing care to minors, citing “unsustainable liability.”
But as local media and subsequent investigations revealed, Reed’s story didn’t hold up to scrutiny. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that “almost two dozen parents of children seen at the clinic...say their experiences sharply contradict the examples supplied by Jamie Reed.” A former patient described a “year-plus long process” before any medical interventions were considered, and a colleague of Reed stated she could “go line by line to her affidavit and debunk it all.” Washington University’s own review found Reed’s allegations “unsubstantiated,” and even The New York Times reported that “some of Ms. Reed’s claims could not be confirmed, and at least one included factual inaccuracies.” Yet The Free Press never issued a correction, and Weiss celebrated the Times coverage as confirmation of Reed’s account.
This episode has fueled concerns about what Weiss’s leadership could mean for CBS News. Critics argue that The Free Press’s willingness to publish unverified and ideologically driven content, and its reluctance to correct the record, could undermine CBS’s longstanding reputation for accuracy and fairness. Journalist Evan Urquhart, reflecting on Weiss’s appointment, said, “The coverage of trans youth healthcare in The Free Press showed that Weiss has no interest in the core function of journalism, which is to accurately inform the audience. If her approach of branding unvetted opinion content as journalism is transported to CBS, it will be a disaster for their newsroom and the broader public who relies on them for unbiased, factual reporting.”
Inside CBS News, the anxiety is palpable. According to Slate, staffers fear Weiss will “use her role to put increasing pressure on political pieces and to secure more favorable coverage of Israel.” Plans are reportedly underway to launch a debate-style program overseen by Weiss, reminiscent of the polarizing debates The Free Press has hosted online. Observers worry this could usher in more “Crossfire”-style programming, where “both sides” of contentious issues are given equal airtime, regardless of the underlying facts.
Paramount, for its part, has declined to comment on the controversy, leaving questions about editorial direction and independence hanging in the air. Dan Rather, now 93, knows the stakes are high. “No journalist or their work can remain unaffected by toiling in such an environment,” he warned. As CBS News stands at this crossroads, the choices made in the months ahead will shape not only its own legacy, but the broader media landscape that millions of Americans depend on for the truth.
