CBS’s parent company, Paramount, has purchased Bari Weiss’s digital media outlet The Free Press and is installing Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
“As of today, I am editor-in-chief of CBS News, working with new colleagues on the programs that have impacted American culture for generations—shows like 60 Minutes and Sunday Morning—and shaping how millions of Americans read, listen, watch, and, most importantly, understand the news in the 21st century,” Weiss said in an announcement of the deal on Oct. 6.
Paramount Chairman and CEO David Ellison said in a statement, “Bari is a proven champion of independent, principled journalism, and I am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Weiss, 41, started The Free Press in 2021, after resigning from her position as an op-ed writer for The New York Times because of what she described at the time as bullying from colleagues and a lack of support from management.
Weiss said in her resignation letter, “Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions.”
CBS executives said Weiss will keep her position as editor of The Free Press in addition to taking on the new role at CBS.
“Bari will report directly to me—leading the work of The Free Press and collaborating with our CBS News team in the pursuit of making it the most trusted name in news,” Ellison said.
“We believe the majority of the country longs for news that is balanced and fact-based, and we want CBS to be their home.”
CBS merged with Viacom in 2019, and the new company was called Paramount Global in 2022. Paramount recently merged with Skydance.
The Free Press acquisition comes several months after Paramount settled with President Donald Trump over edits made to an interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris aired by CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Trump alleged in the ensuing lawsuit that CBS deceptively edited the interview in a bid to help Harris get elected.
Trump ended up defeating Harris in the 2024 election.
Paramount paid Trump $16 million in a settlement without acknowledging any wrongdoing.
Weiss has said she founded The Free Press, originally known as Common Sense, because she had witnessed how “‘all the news that’s fit to print’ was becoming ‘all the news that fits the narrative.'”
She said The Free Press was “built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of great American journalism: honesty, doggedness, and fierce independence.”
According to the digital outlet, it has some 1.5 million subscribers across all 50 states and overseas.
On Oct. 6, Weiss addressed subscribers who might be wondering about the new deal, considering the fact that The Free Press was started because many people felt that the legacy media outlets were not serving the public.
“This is a country with 340 million people,” she wrote. “We want our work to reach more of them, as quickly as possible.
“This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity allows us to do that. It gives The Free Press a chance to help reshape a storied media organization—to help guide CBS News into a future that honors those great values that underpin The Free Press and the best of American journalism. And in doing so, to bring our mission to millions of people.”
Weiss said The Free Press will remain independent and that she will bring to CBS “a redoubled commitment to great journalism.”
She said the deal would not have happened without confidence in Ellison and other new Paramount leaders.
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