Reports: Paramount -- the New Owner of CBS -- Is Close to Buying Bari Weiss' Free Press for As Much as $200 Million, and Giving Weiss a Supervisory Position Over CBS "News" Itself

Dylan Byers reports that the deal, while not yet signed, is on "the 1-yard line."

For those who don't know sportsball, that means that the deal is just 36 inches away from shooting a three-pointer home run.

Paramount is preparing to shell out as much as $200 million for Bari Weiss' buzzy media venture, The Free Press -- and hand her the keys to help steer CBS News -- in a move that's rattling an already shaken news division still reeling from the $8 billion Skydance-Paramount mega-merger.

Weiss, the former New York Times opinion page editor who launched The Free Press in 2022, is reportedly in line for a senior editorial role at CBS News as part of a deal that would fold her outlet into the new Paramount, according to the Puck newsletter.

Paramount declined to comment, but Puck media reporter Dylan Byers pegged the potential purchase price between $100 million and $200 million, with sources saying the talks are in their final stages.

...

The FCC signed off on the transaction after Ellison agreed to sweeping changes at CBS News, including installing an ombudsman to police bias, dismantling DEI programs and promising to elevate "viewpoint diversity."

Those concessions have already rattled the newsroom. One CBS insider told Fox Business that the new ombudsman amounted to a "hall monitor," while former anchors have publicly warned that CBS News' tradition of independent reporting could be in jeopardy.

Now the prospect of Weiss -- a sharp-tongued critic of progressive orthodoxy who quit the Times after blasting the paper's "illiberal environment" -- stepping into a leadership role has only heightened tensions, according to reports.

Bari Weiss is a liberal, but a liberal who dissents from the AWFL Karen Liberal Establishment "consensus." This would be a win for free speech and conservatives, even though it's really yet another media liberal who's profiting.

They'll never let a genuine conservative have any major role in a media outlet, because they're disgusting bigots who deserve what's coming to them.

But this would still advance the cause of conservatism and of free speech.

The boomerang effect -- the NYT fires Weiss, she starts an independent media outlet that soon is worth $100-200 million and becomes a major editorial decision-maker at one of the main outlets of progressive propaganda -- will be an object lesson for the left.

But then, they've shown that they just can't learn, so the object lesson will mean little to them.

Until the next major humiliation and reduction in status that's inflicted on them.

Related: CBS "News" scaremongers over the new rule that those receiving public benefits must, if able-bodied, at least try to pretend to find work.

From the outset, the biggest change to SNAP eligibility comes from people remaining under the work requirement for an additional 10 years- same as you and me. And, in all fairness, the work requirement doesn't mean actual work. It also encompasses looking for work, or studying in lieu of work. But this is presented as a cut to everyone.

That able-bodied individuals not of retirement age should remain in the job market before applying for food stamps is not extraordinary in and of itself, but is presented by CBS as the most draconian thing. How dare people be on the welfare rolls and be made to look for work?

posted by Ace at 01:27 PM

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