Bari Weiss wants to take down CBS News' Standards and Practices unit for having 'too much power': sources [View all]

There are growing concerns within CBS News that Bari Weiss could gut or even disband the network’s Standards and Practices team, with multiple sources telling The Independent that the new editor-in-chief has complained that the unit has “too much power” and she doesn’t see the point of keeping it around.

The internal rumblings within the CBS newsroom come as the head of Standards and Practices announced her resignation and the network disbanded its vaunted Race and Culture unit during parent company Paramount’s brutal and morale-crushing layoffs last month.

Sources explained to The Independent that the Race and Culture team – which advised on “context, tone and intention” of news programming – was initially supposed to be folded into the standards unit and largely survive the sweeping layoffs. Instead, only the unit's head – executive producer Alvin Patrick – was retained, and the rest of the team was let go.

“The team is responsible for ensuring editorial standards are met on scripts and provides daily reporting guidance. They literally uphold journalistic standards,” one CBS News reporter said, adding that it would be “crazy” for the network to dissolve Standards and Practices.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/bari-weiss-cbs-news-standards-and-practices-b2862631.html