CBS News Chief Bari Weiss Issues Stark 'Toast' Warning to Staff Over Strategy
CBS News chief Bari Weiss has delivered a blunt assessment to her staff, warning that the network will be "toast" if it continues to adhere to its current business trajectory. In a sweeping address to employees on Tuesday, Weiss invoked the legendary newsman Walter Cronkite as a symbol of a bygone era, emphasising that nostalgia cannot guide future strategy in a radically transformed media landscape.
A Call for Provocative Change and New Voices
Addressing her team just three months into her role, Weiss positioned herself as a definitive agent of change. She announced the hiring of 18 new contributors and stressed that CBS News must pursue stories that "surprise and provoke—including inside our own newsroom." This move signals a deliberate shift towards content that generates discussion and challenges conventional narratives.
Weiss, the founder of The Free Press website who joined CBS without prior broadcast news experience, has rapidly become a polarising figure in journalism circles. Her tenure has already been marked by controversy, including holding a "60 Minutes" story critical of former President Donald Trump's deportation policy for a month. Critics are closely monitoring whether her leadership is steering the network in a more Trump-friendly direction.
Confronting a Fragmented Media Universe
Weiss framed the current challenge in stark terms, contrasting Cronkite's era of two main competitors with today's environment of "two billion, give or take." She argued that CBS News is failing to produce a product that enough people desire or trust. The network, she stated, is being abandoned for podcasts, newsletters, YouTube, and more agile competitors because it has clung to a dwindling broadcast television audience.
"Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television," Weiss said. "If we stick to that strategy, we're toast."She declared an urgent need to adopt a "streaming mentality," predicting it will become the primary, and eventually sole, method for consuming news content. Weiss envisions CBS News transforming into a laboratory for innovation, experimenting with podcasts, newsletters, and new digital formats.
Investing in Scoops and a 'Start-Up' Culture
Weiss outlined a renewed editorial focus on producing major scoops—not just breaking news, but deep investigative work and "scoops of ideas" that offer fresh explanation and analysis. "This is where we can soar—and where we'll be investing," she emphasised.
Describing CBS News as the "best capitalised media start-up in the world," Weiss warned that this new direction requires a cultural shift. "Start-ups aren't for everyone," she noted, acknowledging they move rapidly, experiment, and sometimes generate negative press. She implicitly invited staff uncomfortable with this pace to reconsider their positions, stating, "It's a free country and I completely respect if you decide this is just not the right place."
Widening the Political and Editorial Aperture
Weiss called for CBS News to better reflect the "political friction" animating national discourse and to "widen the aperture" of stories and voices featured. This aligns with recent network interviews featuring Trump administration figures, including Trump himself on "60 Minutes" and the evening news.
The list of new contributors underscores this push for diverse perspectives. It includes Niall Ferguson, a Free Press columnist supportive of Trump, and Dr. Mark Hyman, a podcast host allied with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy. Other notable hires are Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad, social scientist Arthur Brooks, Harvard economist Roland Fryer, Jr., and former National Security Advisor HR McMaster.
According to an anonymous source familiar with the address, Weiss also discussed a coming "transformation" of CBS's workforce in the years ahead, though she provided no specific details on what that restructuring might entail.
