{"id":522,"date":"2025-10-08T16:08:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T16:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/08\/paramount-acquires-bari-weiss-the-free-press-naming-her-the-top-editor-of-cbs-news\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T16:08:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T16:08:22","slug":"paramount-acquires-bari-weiss-the-free-press-naming-her-the-top-editor-of-cbs-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/08\/paramount-acquires-bari-weiss-the-free-press-naming-her-the-top-editor-of-cbs-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount acquires Bari Weiss\u2019 The Free Press, naming her the top editor of CBS News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The newly formed media corporation Paramount Skydance has acquired The Free Press, an online news and commentary outlet co-founded by Bari Weiss, who will join CBS News as editor-in-chief.<\/p>\n

Weiss launched The Free Press in 2021 with her wife, Nellie Bowles, and her sister, Suzy Weiss. They have presented the publication as a heterodox alternative to the legacy news media and a bulwark against \u201cideological narratives,\u201d particularly on the political left.<\/p>\n

Bari Weiss in New York in 2024.<\/span>Noam Galai \/ Getty Images for The Free Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The acquisition is one of Skydance chief David Ellison\u2019s most significant early moves to reshape the news unit at Paramount, which he acquired in a blockbuster $8 billion deal earlier this year.<\/p>\n

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In seeking federal approval of the merger, Skydance vowed to embrace \u201cdiverse viewpoints\u201d and represent \u201cthe varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.\u201d The company also pledged to install an ombudsman at the nearly 100-year-old CBS News operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis partnership allows our ethos of fearless, independent journalism to reach an enormous, diverse, and influential audience,\u201d Weiss said in a news release. \u201cWe honor the extraordinary legacy of CBS News by committing ourselves to a singular mission: building the most trusted news organization of the 21st Century.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Free Press has roughly 1.5 million subscribers on Substack, with more than 170,000 of them paid, according to Paramount Skydance. The Financial Times estimated that the publication generates more than $15 million in annual subscription revenue. NBC News has not independently verified that figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cBari is a proven champion of independent, principled journalism, and I am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News,\u201d Ellison said in a statement. \u201cThis move is part of Paramount\u2019s bigger vision to modernize content and the way it connects \u2014 directly and passionately \u2014 to audiences around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The acquisition talks between Ellison and Weiss were first reported in late June by Status, a media industry newsletter. Ellison is the son of billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, the co-founder of the software firm Oracle.<\/p>\n

Weiss co-founded The Free Press after quitting the opinion section of The New York Times. In a resignation letter that was published online, Weiss decried what she characterized as the \u201cilliberal environment\u201d at the newspaper.<\/p>\n

The Free Press earned wide attention in April 2024 after it published an essay from Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at National Public Radio who accused his employer of organizing around a \u201cprogressive worldview.\u201d Berliner then resigned from NPR and joined The Free Press.<\/p>\n

The publication\u2019s regular stable of columnists includes Tyler Cowen, an economist and podcaster; Matthew Continetti, the author of a book about the evolution of American conservatism; and Niall Ferguson, a British-American historian.<\/p>\n

CBS News has repeatedly found itself in the national spotlight in recent months. President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit last year against Paramount accusing \u201c60 Minutes\u201d of deceptively editing an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. <\/p>\n

CBS denied the claim. Paramount settled Trump\u2019s lawsuit for $16 million.<\/p>\n

The Federal Communications Commission is still investigating whether CBS engaged in \u201cnews distortion.\u201d The commission is chaired by Brendan Carr, who was appointed by Trump at the start of his second term.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The newly formed media corporation Paramount Skydance has acquired The Free Press, an online news and commentary outlet co-founded by Bari Weiss, who will join CBS News as editor-in-chief. Weiss launched The Free Press in 2021 with her wife, Nellie Bowles, and her sister, Suzy Weiss. They have presented the publication as a heterodox alternative…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfinancialinsights.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}