CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has pivoted to have a much friendlier demeanor as she runs the newsroom, a new report alleges.
Weiss, who was hired to make the network more appealing to conservative viewers, has now begun taking a nicer, more hands-on approach with staff, insiders tell the New York Post.
The pivot reportedly includes her beginning recent Friday editorial calls by “celebrating” wins and singling out certain individuals who have done good work that week—an apparent break from her previous style.
Several controversies have mired the newsroom under her leadership, including the firing of several 60 Minutes correspondents and producers last month—a day internally referred to by CBS staff as “Black Thursday.”
After that disaster, Weiss, 42, reportedly shut herself in, as Status reported she had not been seen on the newsroom floor in weeks and had remained in a sixth-floor office suite accessible only to executives.
Things are different now, according to the Post’s sources. Weiss has now reportedly adopted an open-door policy in her office suite.
“I think Bari has been given management training and told to develop relationships with existing staff and try to retain them,” a CBS staffer told the Post, noting that before, Weiss did not make an effort to mingle in the newsroom.
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Weiss, who had no prior experience in broadcast news, was installed as editor-in-chief of the network last October after Ellison purchased her anti-woke news and opinion blog The Free Press for $150 million.
Ratings for CBS Evening News, the network’s signature weeknight program that Weiss overhauled, have plummeted under her leadership.
Anchor Tony Dokoupil, who was installed by Weiss in the role, has had his own controversies and reportedly irked his own colleagues. He kicked off his time in the anchor chair with several disastrous broadcasts, as he stumbled over the teleprompter and complained that “legacy media,” which he has been a part of for years, had often “missed the story.”
Dozens of staffers have been fired or quit due to Weiss’s leadership. That includes Anderson Cooper, who had been a 60 Minutes correspondent for 20 years, but left on his own accord earlier this year after clashing with Weiss over edits to a segment.
60 Minutes, in particular, has seen massive turnover since Weiss took over the news division. On the so-called “Black Thursday,” she fired executive producer Tanya Simon and replaced her with Nick Bilton, who, like her, had no prior experience in TV news.
That same day, she announced the firing of correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi, who publicly clashed with Weiss over the last-minute decision to shelve a segment on the conditions at CECOT, the infamous El Salvadoran mega-prison where the Trump administration sent migrants without due process.
Former correspondent Scott Pelley was also fired within hours of voicing concerns about the direction of 60 Minutes under Weiss. He, Bilton, and Weiss then engaged in a nasty, public back-and-forth in which Pelley called Weiss’s behavior “cold and callous and beneath the dignity of CBS News.”
