The Stink of Antisemitism: Bari Weiss Isn't Getting CNN

Hello, all, and welcome to Friday, Oct. 2, 2026 — the finish line of the week, and not a moment too soon.

My calendar says it's Smarties Day, Custodial Workers Recognition Day, Name Your Car Day, Body Language Day, Manufacturing Day, Produce Misting Day, Fried Scallops Day, and the International Day of Non-Violence. So name your car, mist some produce to snack on during the drive, eat fried scallops while you do it, and try not to say anything with your body language that you wouldn't say out loud.

Naming your car? I had a conversation about that with a friend just yesterday. I've done that for years, myself. Easier to think of them under a name than the rather impersonal "the car" or "the pickup" or whatever, especially if you have more than one. 

Today in History:

1789: President George Washington sends the Bill of Rights to the states for ratification.
1835: American settlers defeat Mexican cavalry at the Battle of Gonzales, the first battle of the Texas Revolution.
1836: Charles Darwin returns to England aboard the HMS Beagle after his five-year voyage.
1919: President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke that leaves him partially paralyzed for the rest of his term.
1924: The League of Nations adopts the Geneva Protocol.
1941: Nazi Germany launches Operation Typhoon, the assault on Moscow.
1944: German forces crush the Warsaw Uprising after two months of fighting.
1950: Charles Schulz's comic strip Peanuts debuts in newspapers.
1958: Guinea declares independence from France.
1967: Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first black associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1980: Muhammad Ali comes out of retirement to challenge Larry Holmes for the heavyweight title.
2003: J.M. Coetzee wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Birthdays Today include: Mahatma Gandhi, Indian independence leader; Groucho Marx, comedian (Marx Brothers); Donna Karan, fashion designer (DKNY); Annie Leibovitz, photographer; Don McLean, singer-songwriter ("American Pie"); Sting, musician (The Police); and Kelly Ripa, television host.

* * *

Seems like it was just a few days ago when I suggested Bari Weiss shouldn't get too comfortable in whatever role she thought she was walking into.  As of yesterday, by way of the New York Post's Charles Gasparino, we have confirmation that Weiss isn't getting the CNN job after all.

Paramount — Skydance CEO David Ellison has settled on keeping Mark Thompson in place as CNN's chief once the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition closes, rather than handing the network to Weiss on top of her current post running CBS News. Negotiations between Ellison and Thompson over a new contract — his current one runs out early next year — are reportedly still unresolved, but the direction is clear enough: Thompson stays, and Weiss stays out of CNN's org chart, at least for now.

How far this reverses course from the promises made back then is worth a close look, because it answers some questions about the future direction of CNN. Anyone who believes that CNN will move to the right, or even the center, will be disappointed. Ellison’s history lists all the biggies: The BBC, The New York Times, and now CNN. Oh, he’s made all the usual noises about being unbiased,  but I will be shocked if his future curve doesn’t match his old one. And frankly, I don't find the old one appealing.
 
Plucking Weiss from the promised role is an indication of that trend continuing. Recall that back in June, the reporting on this exact question ran the opposite direction entirely — Weiss was described as the heir apparent for CNN, with Ellison supposedly thrilled with her performance running CBS News, and a parade of names (NBCUniversal's Cesar Conde, former NBC News chief Noah Oppenheim, Daily Beast CEO Ben Sherwood) floated as candidates to work under her once she took over. One source told Axios at the time that Paramount's brass loved Bari Weiss, full stop, no qualifiers. That was the plan four months ago. It is very much not the plan today.

What happened in between is worth noticing. Thompson, for his part, apparently made clear months back that he had no interest in sharing oversight of CNN with anyone else, Weiss included — a stance he reportedly communicated directly to Paramount executives well before yesterday's reporting.

For her own part, Weiss's own tenure at CBS News hasn't exactly been drama-free in the meantime. She took heat for pulling a 60 Minutes segment on Venezuelan migrants sent to El Salvador's CECOT prison, only to let it air nearly a month later, and her leadership presided over a purge dubbed "Black Thursday," which saw an executive producer and three correspondents ousted in a single day. Fired CBS correspondent Scott Pelley has been openly dismissive of her, reportedly describing the network as "on fire" under her watch. Gee, shocking that he'd say that. [/sarc]

It seems that Weiss is no longer Paramount’s Golden Child. 

None of this means Weiss is finished, mind you. Sources close to the situation say Larry Ellison, David's father and the company's deepest pocket, still backs her and wants her kept in the fold. But "kept in the fold" and "handed a second cable news network" are very different outcomes, and as of this week, Weiss is getting the former, not the latter. How long she will remain in this now diminished role is anyone’s guess. She may pluck up a little pride and walk away. 

Recommended: Always Watching

The work history of Bari Weiss speaks for itself, in terms of fitting or not fitting in at a sewer like CNN. 

Weiss worked as an opinion editor at the usually center-right Wall Street Journal Editorial section, before joining The New York Times in 2017 as an opinion staff editor and writer.

At the Times, she became associated with the argument that progressive activists and newsroom colleagues were narrowing the range of acceptable opinions, particularly on race, gender, Israel, and free speech. She resigned in July 2020, accusing the paper of tolerating ideological conformity and hostility toward employees whose views diverged from the prevailing newsroom consensus, and arguing that social-media pressure was increasingly driving editorial decisions. The dispute made her a prominent figure in the broader fight over cancel culture and newsroom independence.

After leaving the Times, Weiss founded The Free Press, a publication built around dissent from elite consensus, free expression, criticism of progressive politics, and coverage of contentious cultural issues. Its editorial direction has frequently been described as anti-woke and right-leaning, though it publishes a range of viewpoints and isn't reducible to a conventional Republican outlet.

But now, we come to it: Much of the pushback to Weiss in all of these positions has the stink of antisemitism on it. 

Weiss has long built her public identity around opposing antisemitism, dating back to her Columbia activism in the early 2000s, and her appointment as CBS News editor-in-chief in October 2025 was explicitly framed by outlets like JTA as a "stunning ascent" for someone who "started as [an] antisemitism crusader."

At her previous job at the New York Times, her 2020 resignation letter described colleagues calling her a "Nazi" and a "racist" in internal Slack channels — that's a case where she herself was on the receiving end of hostility tied to her Jewish identity and pro-Israel views, in a newsroom she didn't oversee.

Her actions at CBS, where she was in a supervisory role, have been labeled by some, particularly inside the company, as a "pro-Israel purge." Something of a theme developing here, not that it's a shock to anyone's system. 

How much of that is actually the reason for the shift in direction that I predicted a few days ago is a fair question. Frankly, though, it was a large reason for my prediction. I can't recall being so annoyed at one of my predictions being correct.

Now before you start in on me, yes, I know David Ellison is of Jewish heritage, as is his dad. I also note that so far, as my research shows, Mark Thompson is not. My suspicion, and thereby my prediction of the other day, is based mostly on what we know of their business sense. I may be giving them more credit than they deserve, and time will tell us on that score. My thinking at the moment, however, is that they know the problem exists in their newsrooms and probably don't want that friction at the merger. This is likely an attempt to keep the peace in the newsroom, however temporarily. Trouble is, I get the feeling it's going to come back to bite them at some point in the future, and quite possibly sooner than later. This kind of issue always does. 

The immediate effect, though, is that if changes in editorial values are coming at CNN and, for that matter, CBS, they'll be slower in coming than we'd like to see. 

= = = 

Thought for the day: I do wonder why there was less outrage from the left over letting millions of unvetted illegals into the country than there has been over keeping what have literally become leftist propaganda orgs out of the White House.

VIP members: What do YOU think? Your voice matters here, so let's hear from you. 

Take care today, gang. You've made it to the weekend. Be here to enjoy it. I'll see you here tomorrow.

Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.

Help us continue to expose their left-wing bias by reading news you can trust. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.