Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Is This The End for “CBS News” and “60 Minutes”? Ellison Hires Conservative Bari Weiss to Run the Shows Despite No Experience

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If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would imagine this set up:

Trump tells buddy Larry Ellison and his son David, new owners of Paramount CBS, to destroy the news division. Devalue it instantly. Force all the hard line journalists out.

So here we go. David Ellison has hired Bari Weiss to run CBS News. She’s a conservative domestically, but pro-Israel. She’s married to a woman, but will she turn against gay rights in her Foxification of the news?

Weiss is reviled in mass media. She was forced out of her op-ed role at the New York Times. Former employees of The Free Press, which she has now sold to Ellison for $150 million, are complaining about her all over social media.

How will this work? It reminds me of when Penske Media hired Nikki Finke and gave her a forum. We know how that worked out.

Weiss, 41, sent this widely distributed out memo today to the staff.

Suddenly media reporting is going to juicy again.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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