John Oliver agrees with former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather regarding the future of CBS News after Paramount CEO David Ellison hired Bari Weiss as the network’s new editor in chief.
The late-night host addressed the situation on Sunday’s (October 12) edition of Last Week Tonight, telling his viewers that it’s “especially alarming” to have someone running CBS News “that has spent years putting out work that, in my opinion, is at best irresponsible, and at worst, deeply misleading.”
Weiss, a former The New York Times columnist, is known for founding The Free Press with her spouse, Nellie Bowles. The publication started life as a newsletter in 2021 before growing into an associated media company in 2022. Paramount Skydance acquired the site last Monday (October 6) and named Weiss as the new editor in chief of CBS News.
In his segment about the hiring, Oliver said, “Let’s start with the fact that she’s been given editorial control of a massive news organization, even though she’s never run a TV network, has no experience directing television coverage, and as one 60 Minutes producer pointed out, is not even a reporter… She didn’t come up through the news site of a newspaper, but through the opinion pages, which are a very different thing.”
Oliver admitted his own show is “an opinion outlet,” adding, “While our staff works incredibly hard to research stories before we write something and vigorously check our facts afterwards, we’re also not the news. And I wouldn’t want anyone who led a pure opinion outlet, not even one that I happened to agree with, to suddenly be running CBS News.”
The comedian pointed out that some of Weiss’ NYT columns were misleading, including one that contained links to an “official” Antifa Twitter account, which was actually “a well-known hoax site, which is pretty embarrassing.”
Oliver quipped, “You don’t expect a Times writer to fall for online hoaxes like they’re your 75-year-old aunt on Facebook who keeps posting that message saying, ‘I hereby state that I do not give my permission to use any of my personal data or photos.’”
Turning his attention to The Free Press, Oliver played a clip of Weiss talking about her approach to finding out the truth, in which she said, “The only way that you get to truth is by sitting next to someone who disagrees with you, who you still respect, admire them and collaborate with them.”
“I mean, maybe that is how you do it as an opinion writer, but that is not how you get to truth as a reporter, is it?” Oliver retorted. “You do that by leaving the newsroom and reporting… And I’ll be honest, there’s not a ton of hard journalism on The Free Press site… There’s usually just a handful of new posts a day, which can even include weird s*** like editorial cartoons from David Mamet, the playwright. And if you’re thinking, ‘I didn’t realize David Mamet could draw’ — fun fact, he can’t.”
Oliver also addressed reports that Ellison is preparing a bid for CNN and HBO as part of a potential merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. The host said that “isn’t ideal” for his show, but added, “Although, I’ve gotta say, if what he likes about Bari is that she forces him to have hard conversations, to get a bit uncomfortable, maybe he’ll like this.”
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Sundays, 11/10c, HBO