Paramount Officially Acquiring The Free Press and Making Bari Weiss CBS News Editor in Chief: Report [View all]

Source: MEDIAite

Oct 2nd, 2025, 4:03 pm


Paramount Skydance will be officially acquiring The Free Press and hiring its founder Bari Weiss as editor in chief of its CBS News division, with the deal to be announced this coming Monday, according to a report by Puck’s Dylan Byers.

Prior to the merger with Paramount, Skydance CEO and founder David Ellison “quietly courted” Weiss to bring her on board for a potential high-profile gig with CBS, according to a report by Oliver Darcy.

Weiss was an editor and writer at The New York Times, covering political and culture topics, until she left in 2020 and launched a Substack newsletter, later renamed as The Free Press. Earlier in her career, Weiss was viewed as being aligned with the center-left but has moved rightward on certain issues, garnering praise in conservative circles for her critiques of “woke” liberal excesses at the Times, other media outlets, universities, and prominent progressive institutions.

The merger took on larger political implications in the wake of President Donald Trump’s re-election, due to his vociferous criticism of 60 Minutes and CBS News programs and reporters — not to mention the lawsuit he filed regarding an interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which Paramount settled shortly before the merger went through.

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/paramount-officially-acquiring-the-free-press-and-making-bari-weiss-cbs-news-editor-in-chief-report/