Five years ago, Bari Weiss left The New York Times after accusing the newspaper of allowing ideological conformity to narrow the boundaries of acceptable opinion. In 2026, she sits atop one of the most famous news organizations in the world.
That remarkable reversal is the clearest measure of Weiss’s influence. In October 2025, Paramount Skydance acquired The Free Press, the independent media company she founded, for a reported $150 million and named Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News. The journalist who had built her reputation challenging legacy media was suddenly responsible for reshaping one of its most storied institutions.
Weiss, 42, is a Pittsburgh native who grew up in the city’s Jewish community and became a bat mitzvah at the Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 worshipers were murdered in the 2018 antisemitic attack. Her Jewish identity and support for Israel have long been central to her public voice. Her 2019 book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, won the National Jewish Book Award and argued that Jew-hatred had become increasingly acceptable across different parts of the political spectrum.
Her career had already taken her through some of America’s most influential publications: Tablet, The Wall Street Journal, and, from 2017 to 2020, The New York Times. After leaving the Times, she launched a newsletter, initially called Common Sense, that grew into The Free Press. What began as an experiment in independent journalism became a serious media business. By January 2026, Weiss said it had reached two million subscribers, while developing a roster of writers, podcasts, investigations, and live events.
The past year, however, has moved Weiss into an entirely different category of influence. At CBS, she has set out to remake a network she argues must adapt to changing audiences and declining trust in traditional news. She has brought independent writers and podcasters into the CBS orbit, pushed the network toward digital platforms, and undertaken a sweeping overhaul of 60 Minutes, replacing senior figures and bringing in new correspondents and contributors.
Critics inside and outside CBS have questioned her lack of experience
Those changes have been controversial. Critics inside and outside CBS have questioned her lack of television experience and accused her of shifting the network politically; supporters see a long-overdue challenge to an establishment media culture that has lost touch with large sections of the American public. Weiss herself has said she wants CBS to speak to the Center-Left and Center-Right rather than one political tribe.
For Jewish audiences, her prominence is especially significant. Since October 7, The Free Press has emerged as one of the most forceful American outlets covering antisemitism, Israel, and the ideological battles surrounding Zionism. Weiss has used her platform to insist that support for Israel and concern over antisemitism should not be pushed to the margins of respectable discourse.
Whether her CBS experiment ultimately succeeds remains an open question. But in the space of a year, Bari Weiss has gone from running an influential digital publication to helping determine the editorial direction of a major American television network. Few journalists have accumulated that kind of power so quickly.