Seven months after she was named editor-in-chief of CBS News, Bari Weiss is set to have a consequential summer as she overhauls the legacy news division and plots significant changes to tentpole shows like 60 Minutes and CBS Mornings.
But the Free Press founder’s plans may be impacted by the next deal that her boss, David Ellison, has in the works. If Ellison’s $111 billion play to merge Paramount with Warner Bros. Discovery goes through (it’s expected to close in September), it would bring together two large, legacy news organizations in CBS News and CNN. That could reshuffle the playbook that Weiss has been spending this year making and beginning to execute.
While Weiss outlined her vision for CBS in an all-hands meeting in January, aside from her reworking of the CBS Evening News around Tony Dokoupil, and some tweaks to the streaming lineup, many of her changes are yet to take hold.
“Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television,” she told staff at the time. “If we stick to that strategy, we’re toast.”
CBS News cut dozens of roles in March as part of that overhaul, and more changes are expected over the coming months.
