An Axios report dated June 9 stated that Bari Weiss, CBS News’ editor-in-chief, is reportedly preparing to oversee CNN’s editorial operations following Paramount Skydance’s impending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. For those uninformed, CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, and CBS is owned by Paramount Skydance. Additionally, Paramount Skydance acquired Warner Bros. Discovery for around $111 billion after a bidding war with Netflix earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Bari Weiss’ name made headlines after she became CBS News’ editor-in-chief in October 2025. She courted controversy after firing several correspondents and executives of CBS News’ 60 Minutes show, including correspondent Scott Pelly, who accused Weiss of “murdering” the show, adding, “She does not love this place, she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”
According to The New York Post, Bari Weiss is now being considered to oversee CNN’s editorial operations if and when the acquisition is approved, with Paramount looking at other candidates to help Weiss run the business side of the operation so she could focus on the editorial. So far, five candidates have been named for the position, including former CBS News president David Rhodes and current CNN CEO Mark Thompson.
This new report has spurred doubt and concerns in netizens’ minds, with one X user wondering why Bari Weiss was considered for the position after she allegedly ran CBS News “into the ground.”
“Didn’t she just run CBS news into the ground.”
Several netizens shared similar concerns, claiming that Bari Weiss already “made a mess” at CBS.
Others suggested that this could lead to a “monopoly” in journalism.
Scott Pelley called for Bari Weiss’ removal following his firing
Scott Pelley, who had worked for CBS News for 37 years and was a correspondent on 60 Minutes since 2004, was fired on June 2, 2026, one day after he questioned the show’s new executive producer, Nick Bilton, and alleged that Weiss was “murdering” 60 Minutes. In the termination letter, Bilton alleged that Pelley “hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt.”
Meanwhile, Pelley addressed his dismissal in a statement shared online by Dylan Byers, a senior correspondent for Puck. The former CBS correspondent alleged that 60 Minutes‘ new management instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story.”
Bari Weiss later discussed his termination during a daily editorial meeting on June 3, saying Pelley had broken the newsroom’s “trust and mutual respect.”
“I know I speak for myself, and I hope I speak for everyone here when I say that I’m only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect. We cannot do our work without it. That foundation was broken on Monday, and despite our attempts to engage with Scott Pelley and to find a way back, unfortunately we weren’t able to do so, and so we had to part ways,” Bari Weiss said.
She continued:
“We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose. That unfortunate outcome does not discount from the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for 60 Minutes over the course of his career.”
Scott Pelley gave his first sit-down interview with The New York Times following his termination earlier this week, in which he called the firing of 60 Minutes‘ executive producer Tanya Simon and other correspondents “the Black Thursday massacre.” Pelley said his reaction after the news was “shock, dismay, impossible to believe, searching desperately for an explanation, knowing that an explanation would be forthcoming and then not seeing that.”
Scott Pelley also recalled the incident that occurred the day before his firing, recounting that he met Nick Bilton, the show’s new executive producer, for the first time on June 1. Pelley said he was compelled to speak up during the meeting after he realized he was the most senior person in the room.
The following day, he was called for a meeting with Tom Cibrowski, CBS News president, and said the energy in the room was “hostile, dismissive.” Pelley continued that Cibrowski accused him of “physically abusing” Bilton, which he denied. Hours after the meeting, he received an email that he had been fired.
When asked whether Bari Weiss “needs to be removed,” Pelley replied:
“Oh, gosh, yes. Look, she’s a lovely person. And her Free Press organization that she founded has been very successful. But television’s not her thing. This is like somebody walking up to me and saying, ‘There’s a 747, there are 400 people on it, we need you to fly it to Paris.’ I’m going to decline because I don’t have a clue. And it would have been so much better if Bari Weiss had been offered this job and said, ‘Oh, that’s not for me, I don’t know how to do that.’”
Elsewhere in the interview, Scott Pelley said CBS News was “on fire,” and alleged that 60 Minutes had a “subtle political bias” that he had never seen before during his decades-long tenure on the show.
Edited by Juhi Marzia
