JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
CBS' new editor-in-chief says two groups of people have increasing power over the media - the, quote, "America-loathing far left" and the, quote, "history-erasing far right." She says she wants to appeal to the vast majority of Americans in the middle. We are talking about Bari Weiss, the former New York Times opinion editor who left the Times to launch The Free Press and today added one more title to her resume. NPR's David Folkenflik is here with more. Hey.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: So David, start out by just telling us, what do we need to know about Bari Weiss?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, she was an op-ed editor and writer for The Wall Street Journal, then the New York Times - sort of staked out a contrarian center-right position. And she left the New York Times with a blast in July of 2020 at sort of the height of the social justice movement that was coursing through the streets but also through many newsrooms. She said her colleagues - in an open letter to the Times' publisher, A. G. Sulzberger - were illiberal and, in fact, bullying of her, unwilling to engage in open thought.
And she started a Substack that she built into The Free Press with her wife and her sister. The Free Press was a views and news site that basically became a home for people who felt that the mainstream media had lost its way and lost sight of what they thought of as traditional values, but also thought that things had gotten too woke, in their phrasing. So they took a lot of critical looks at the way in which the press covered the Israel-Hamas war, and they took, in fact, a critical look at NPR, as well.
SUMMERS: That's right. Now she has landed at CBS in a prominent job. What does she say is in store for CBS?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, so Weiss has announced what she said these 10 precepts, these fundamental journalistic values that she wants the network to get back to. Two of them seem, to me, to be very focused on the idea of the reporting to be factually based. She says she wants to hold both major parties to account, that stories shouldn't be predetermined. They should go where the facts take them. You know, Ellison - David Ellison, who's the CEO and leader of Skydance, the parent company for CBS and Paramount Global, bought The Free Press. I'm told it's for about $150 million in stock and cash.
SUMMERS: Do you have a sense of what he wants to accomplish by making her editor-in-chief of CBS and buying her news site, The Free Press?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, they've talked about the idea that they want to appeal to the middle, from the center-left to the center-right. They say there's about 70% of the country that isn't being well-served and that they hope in some ways to return CBS to being truly a broadcaster. The idea is reaching as large an audience as possible, you know, even in an age of these fracturing audiences, where, you know, often these narrower slices in the cable world and the streaming world are what's driving audiences.
SUMMERS: How should we look at all of these changes going on right now at CBS?
FOLKENFLIK: Look, a lot of what they're saying seems, to me, pretty reasonable in journalism - the idea of holding people accountable, the idea of being factually based in a time of such loud opinion mongering. The idea of saying a contrarian voice, like Weiss', might well be welcome at the top levels of an American news organization, you know, taken into account as people set their news agendas. I think you can't look at this, though, without thinking about the context in which this is being done. President Trump has filed lawsuits against many of the nation's top news organizations, CBS among them. In fact, CBS' previous owners paid $16 million to get rid of that individual lawsuit to make sure that its sale to the Ellisons could get through.
The Ellisons needed the Trump administration's approval to acquire CBS' parent company. They've just gotten - President Trump has just gotten them a stake in the American version of TikTok. They're looking to the administration, perhaps, if they make a bid for CNN's parent company. That's the context in which we look at this as well. So, are they going to be, you know, changemakers? Are they going to be trying to figure out a new way to keep CBS consistent to long-held values? Or are they doing it...
SUMMERS: We'll have to see.
FOLKENFLIK: ...To please a political figure?
SUMMERS: We'll have to see.
FOLKENFLIK: Exactly right.
SUMMERS: NPR's David Folkenflik. Thanks.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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