Bari Weiss, The Free Press and CBS News

The Free Press is one of the most consequential media experiments of the decade: an independent outlet built on the argument that legacy newsrooms had become ideologically captured. Bari Weiss founded it after her public resignation from The New York Times in 2020, and it grew from a newsletter into a large subscription business. As I discussed on the show, Paramount Skydance then acquired it, and Weiss became editor-in-chief of CBS News.

The steelman is that there was real demand for journalism that didn't sort every story through one political lens, and The Free Press met it with voices that don't map onto any party. Building that from scratch is a genuine achievement.

My concern is the move from critic to institution. An outlet built on the grievance of exclusion is very good at finding what's wrong with incumbents and much less practiced at being one. Reported friction inside CBS over staffing and coverage decisions suggests that tension is now playing out. I can't judge the merits of each dispute, and the specifics belong to the reporting.

There's also the question of symmetry. The Free Press has published a string of critical pieces about Zohran Mamdani. Hard coverage of a powerful mayor is legitimate. The test is whether the same skepticism lands on allies and owners. That's the media version of the three tests I apply to Sacks.

The way I framed it on air, the question isn't whether Weiss is sincere. It's whether sincerity survives contact with power. One uncertainty is that her role is reportedly in flux amid the merger. What would move me toward optimism is CBS, under her, running tough, well-sourced reporting on its own corporate allies.