Gosh, how much "further" right could CBS possibly get? It already has on board hard-core conservatives including Margaret Brennan, John Dickerson, and Norah O'Donnell. Oh, wait.
On Wednesday's CNN This Morning, lefty media analyst Sara Fischer, discussing Paramount's purchase of The Free Press, and the naming of Free Press founder Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News, claimed that the $150 million that Paramount paid for The Free Press was so excessive as to be "insane," thereby supposedly proving that Paramount CEO:
"David Ellison either has a personal or political interest to sort of bring CBS News further to the right."
Host Audie Cornish let her liberalism show, describing the Free Press as "best known for criticism of the so-called woke left." So-called? Cornish apparently has her doubts as to whether the woke left exists. Spoiler alert, Audie: it does. Would Cornish ever refer to the "so-called ultraconservatives or hard-right?"
Cornish highlighted anonymous CBS staffers describing the mood at the network as "utterly depressing." One of them said, "A throwing up emoji is not enough of a reflection of the feelings in here."
Asked to explain that reaction, Fischer said that staffers feel that the "independence of the network" is being threatened.
Translation of "independence": Free rein to push a consistently left-wing line.
CNN itself would be a prime candidate to be pushed "further" to the right. As we've documented since she took over as host, Audie Cornish and her show are good examples of the network's liberal bias. Fischer is Cornish's go-to person on media issues. We've reported on her outlandishly lefty takes, including the side-splitter in which she suggested that conservatives could have been responsible for store destruction in the post-George Floyd riots.
Note: Speaking of "throwing up emojis," in February, our Tim Graham caught Face the Nation host Brennan saying that the Holocaust happened because "free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide," as if the Nazis allowed free speech. Forget emojis. Brennan's inane claim might have been enough to elicit the real thing in some of us.
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
10/8/25
6:25 am EDTAUDIE CORNISH: There's a new boss in the house that Walter Cronkite built. Bari Weiss is now editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Five years ago, the former opinion columnist left the New York Times to start her own media outlet called The Free Press. Now Paramount, the owner of CBS, is buying The Free Press for $150 million. In her new job as editor-in-chief, Weiss will report to the top, Paramount's chief executive David Ellison.
Weiss considers herself a centrist and a champion of Israel, and her outlet is best known for criticism of the so-called woke left. And according to our next guest, Sarah Fischer of Axios, the acquisition the Free Press marks the latest in a string of moves by Ellison to shift CBS News coverage to the right.
Joining me now to discuss, Axios' senior media reporter, Sarah Fischer. Sarah, thanks so much for being with us.SARA FISCHER: Thanks, Audi.
CORNISH: So talk to me a little bit first just about the money of this deal. Why Ellison would be interested, why CBS was vulnerable.
FISCHER: Yeah, so if you look at a deal like this, it values this startup at $150 million. That's roughly 10 times the amount of annual revenue that this startup brings in roughly. Audie, that is an insane multiple for a digital media outlet. Most deals I cover, you're looking at two times or maybe even three times.
And so when you think about that, It means that this deal was not done for financial purposes. The premium on that website is because David Ellison either has personal or political interests in bringing on this publication in his attempt to sort of CBS News further to the right.
. . .
CORNISH: There have been some sort of shakeups in the newsroom, some frustration as a result of this. The Guardian spoke to six CBS News employees, and they described the mood at the network as utterly depressing. And one of them said "A throwing up emoji is not enough of a reflection of the feelings in here." What are you hearing from your sources?
FISCHER: I think it's a compounding of feelings over the past few months. If you take a CBS News has been through so much drama that I think employees are exasperated. So first of all, you had the CEO of CBS News, Wendy McMahon, who is a veteran of news, essentially get pushed out of the company over tension between how the newsroom was handling the issue of the Israel-Gaza war. After that, you had the longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, also exit the company, saying he didn't think he could do his job independently. Then in the past few months, right before that deal was brokered, in which Skydance, David Ellison's company, bought Paramount, you had Steve Colbert announce that his show was getting canceled. That was a few days before the deal was done. You also had a few new changes, like they brought in an ombudsman, so somebody who can act as sort of like an independent arbiter of truth, if you will, who has ties to conservative causes. Changes were made to the way that Face the Nation is going to edit interviews after Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem complained.
So the reason employees now with this Bari Weiss news are feeling frustrated is because it's not happening in a vacuum, Audie. It's happening after all of these new measures have been taken that they feel are threatening the independence of the network.
