The CBS Meltdown Over Bari Weiss
The uproar over Bari Weiss reveals two very different, but equally telling, dynamics.
CBS is reportedly in talks to acquire
, the media outlet founded by , for up to $200 million. As part of the deal, Weiss is expected to take on a senior editorial role at CBS News.The uproar reveals two very different, but equally telling, dynamics.
First, consider the anti-Israel influencers.
They are in full panic over The Free Press because it occasionally publishes stories that treat Israel with fairness. And on this point, they are not wrong. The reason The Free Press appears “pro-Israel” is not because it operates as propaganda, but because virtually every other major outlet covers Israel with suspicion, hostility, and contempt. The mainstream press runs Hamas casualty figures as though they were verified fact, it frames Israel as the aggressor, and it downplays or outright ignores Hamas atrocities. In such a climate, even the smallest gesture of balance such as quoting an Israeli statement, reporting evidence of Hamas tunnels beneath hospitals, or acknowledging Israel’s right to self-defense is immediately branded “Zionist propaganda.” This is how distorted the discourse has become. These activists insist the entire media establishment is controlled by Jews. Their grievance with The Free Press is not that it lies, but that it refuses to lie in unison with everyone else.
Now look at CBS. Reports say staffers are “apoplectic” over Weiss’s possible appointment, with some even threatening to resign.
You would think Hamas itself had been invited to the editorial board. Instead, it is Bari Weiss, whose supposed crime is overseeing a newsroom that sometimes treats Israel with fairness. If CBS really were the “Zionist propaganda machine” these critics claim it to be, why would its own journalists be in open revolt over Weiss? The fact that they are proves the opposite. It exposes how entrenched the hostility toward Israel already is inside elite newsrooms, and how intolerant they are of even a hint of dissent from that narrative.
Bret Stephens put it clearly over twenty years ago: “Moral clarity is a term that doesn't get much traction these days, least of all among journalists, who prefer ‘objectivity’ and ‘balance.’ Yet good journalism is more than about separating fact from opinion and being fair. Good journalism is about fine analysis and making distinctions, and this applies as much to moral distinctions as to any others. Because too many reporters today refuse to make moral distinctions, we are left with a journalism whose narrative and analytical failings have become ever more glaring.”
That is the real story. The loudest voices rage that the media is too “pro-Israel,” while CBS staffers panic at the possibility of one editor who might not reflexively toe the anti-Israel line. Taken together, the picture is unmistakable. The press is not sympathetic to Israel. If anything, it is so steeped in anti-Israel bias that the mere appearance of fairness is treated as heresy.
I'd feel better if Free Press remained as it is.