The Amateurism of Bari Weiss
No explanation of Bari Weiss' behavior speaks well of her recent job performance.
Full disclosure: I’m not a journalist. I have never been a journalist. Marcy Wheeler, a.k.a. Empty Wheel, once snarkily described me as “a news-savvy political science professor with a column, not a journalist” — and you know what, that perfectly captures my relationship with journalism. I have written regularly for Foreign Policy and the Washington Post (and whatever you want to call Drezner’s World). When it comes to the mechanics of editing and content-management systems, I’m smarter than your average bear. I opine a hell of a lot more than I report, however. The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World does not work hard at developing sources or breaking news. Mostly what I do — what most opinion writing does — is draft off of the reporters and outlets who do break news and react to what they have unearthed.
My point is, if someone asked me to helm an entire news organization, I’d be a little wary about doing it. I would recognize that when it comes to overseeing journalism, I would be, at best, an enlightened amateur.
Kinda like Bari Weiss, the recently-installed CBS News editor in chief.
As someone who respects his readers, I assume most Drezner’s World subscribers1 are already aware that Weiss ordered a 60 Minutes segment pulled from the Sunday night broadcast. CBS announced the switch just three hours before it was scheduled to air, raising eyebrows. The segment, reported by Sharyn Alfonsi, was about the Trump administration’s deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to CECOT, El Salvador’s already-infamous maximum-security prison. Despite Weiss’ attempt to either delay or deny the segment from airing, it has now slipped out across the interwebs:
Needless to say, Alfonsi was livid about the last-minute decision, as her leaked email to her news team reflected:
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.
We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO.2 Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.
If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient.
If the standard for airing a story becomes “the government must agree to be interviewed,” then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state….
We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of “Gold Standard” reputation for a single week of political quiet.
So why did Weiss actually order the segment pulled? Was it political or was it editorial? There are two not-mutually-exclusive possibilities: one that is nauseating and one that is embarrassing. No matter what it is disturbing.
Frida Ghitis spelled out the political theory on her Substack, connecting Weiss’ decision to Paramount’s hostile bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD):
A few days ago, as Paramount was brainstorming how to win WBD, Trump sent a message that he was unhappy with 60 Minutes since the Ellisons bought CBS. The feds had approved the Paramount merger with the Ellisons’ Skydance after Paramount paid Trump $16 millions to settle a bogus lawsuit. It was already an affront to the First Amendment.
Now Trump sent his smoke signal, which Paramount clearly understood: 60 Minutes would have to treat him better.
It’s reasonable to conclude that this is the reason CBS did not broadcast the story….
Shelving a 60 Minutes story critical of the administration only moments before it’s about to air, in the middle of a battle for the president’s approval of a merger, is not routine. And the timeline here is beyond suspicious. It is damning.
“Reasonable to conclude” is far from direct evidence. Given Weiss’ track record at the Free Press, however, and given the myriad payoffs different media elites have provided Trump in an effort to curry his favor, it can’t be ruled out either — a conclusion that I find nauseating.
Weiss and her supporters continue to insist that her motivations were strictly editorial. Axios’ Sara Fischer reports that, “According to two people familiar with Weiss’ thinking, the existing framework for how 60 Minutes shows are produced did not provide sufficient checks and balances to ensure that the reporting met Weiss’ standards.” Fischer also reprinted Weiss’ email to 60 Minutes staff that detailing her requested changes and follow-ups. An excerpt:
I know you’d all like to see this run as soon as possible; I feel the same way. But if we run the piece as is, we’d be doing our viewers a disservice.
Last month many outlets, most notably The New York Times, exposed the horrific conditions at CECOT. Our story presents more of these powerful testimonies—and putting those accounts into the public record is valuable in and of itself. But if we're going to run another story about a topic that has by now been much-covered we need to advance it….
At present, we do not present the administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT. What we have is Karoline Leavitt’s soundbite claiming they are evildoers in America (rapists, murderers, etc.). But isn’t there much more to ask in light of the torture that we are revealing? Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don’t tend to be shy. I realize we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record.
The data we present paints an incongruent picture. Of the 252 Venezuelans sent to CECOT, we say nearly half have no criminal histories. In other words, more than half do have criminal histories. We should spend a beat explaining this. We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in America for violent offenses. But what about charged? My point is that we should include as much as we can possibly know and understand about these individuals.
There’s more in Weiss’ email,3 but let’s focus on these three arguments because they reveal Weiss’ amateurism in running a television news division.
First, Weiss fails to comprehend the difference between reading about the abuse of prisoners in CECOT and watching video demonstrating the same. This is the kind of story where video packs a much bigger wallop than print alone. That Weiss does not grasp this basic point — that she is no longer running a print publication but one premised on video — is embarrassing given her current job.
Second, I actually agree with Weiss that the segment would have been stronger with an on-the-record interview with Miller or Homan. Even if they had blustered their way through the interview, the contrast between the harrowing prisoner stories and the likely bombast of Trump White House officials could have been arresting television.
But — and this is a very important but — it’s not obvious to me how Weiss or 60 Minutes producers could have secured such interviews. No matter what MAGA folks believe, this is not a good story for the Trump White House, and they don’t want to talk about it in non-conservative media spaces. Trump officials would likely have strung 60 Minutes along indefinitely, thereby delaying the airing of the segment even more and adding nothing of value.4
Third, that last paragraph is damning. Weiss, “but what about all the violent criminals Trump did deport?” schtick puts the lie to her faux-balance horseshit and convenient hypocrisies. The CECOT story is not about any deportations of violent criminals. It is about the Trump administration disregarding proper evidentiary standards and the rule of law just to maximize deportations, leading to an awful lot of innocent people — including U.S. citizens — to suffer horrible deprivations. The administration’s abandonment of the presumption of innocence is the story, a fact Weiss embarrassingly fails to comprehend.
Even a sympathetic read of Weiss’ position reveals someone who is out of their depth managing CBS news — a fact that her allies acknowledge. The New York Times’ Michael Grynbaum details this in his latest reporting:
]Weiss’] viewpoint found little sympathy within “60 Minutes.” The show’s staff and correspondents convened for a somber Monday afternoon meeting, where the correspondent Scott Pelley expressed frustration at Ms. Weiss’s handling of the situation and raised questions about her management style. He asked why she had weighed in at the last minute after not attending five screenings of the segment as it was being completed.
“It’s not a part-time job,” Mr. Pelley said, according to four people familiar with the discussion who requested anonymity to describe a private exchange….
Allies of Ms. Weiss argue that as editor in chief, she has a clear prerogative to weigh in on any of the journalism produced by her newsroom. Still, even some of her supporters privately conceded on Monday that she was still learning the ropes of broadcast journalism and that she had mishandled the timing of her feedback.
The segment, reported by the correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, was first screened for CBS journalists on Dec. 12; Ms. Weiss did not attend that screening or four others over the next week, a person with direct knowledge of the screenings said. She watched a video of the segment on Thursday night and offered suggestions, which producers integrated into the script. By Friday afternoon, “60 Minutes” had given CBS management the green light to announce and promote the segment to viewers….
Frustration with Ms. Weiss spilled out at the show’s Monday staff meeting, the four people familiar with the conversation said.
Mr. Pelley said that if Ms. Weiss planned to be more involved with editing “60 Minutes” stories, she should attend the early screenings and communicate directly with correspondents. “She needs to take her job a little bit more seriously,” he said.
At best, Bari Weiss is unserious and unschooled about her job. At worst she’s ham-handedly trying to help appease Trump in the interest of promoting her boss’ business empire.5
In either case, she is not very good at her job.
And for those of you who don’t know, hey, I get it, none of us can be on top of the news at all times.
Axios’ Sara Fischer reports that “the 60 Minutes team reached out to press officials at the White House, State Department and DHS, all of which provided comment to CBS News. None of those comments, which varied in length and substance, were included in the piece.” The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World would very much like to see some follow-up reporting confirming that particular detail.
“More” including some incorrect claims about the law.
Do Miller and Homan like sparring on television? Sure, if it’s live and they can filibuster. That dog won’t hunt for 60 Minutes.
And testing the Streisand Effect for a whole new generation of news consumers.
A relatively minor point in this, but she doesn’t seem to distinguish much between “criminal charges” and “violent.” That is, there is a such a thing as a nonviolent criminal charge. I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the piece, so I don’t know if it breaks down the charged, uncharged, etc, but she doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the legal system at all. Generally, in news, if you don’t get the small stuff, you miss the bigger picture, too. — recovering journalist
I had never heard about Weiss before any of this, and my initial thought was that this was entirely a political act on her part - kowtowing to corporate interests and all. I didn’t even consider the “editorial” angle she tried to advance, as described here. And as I read, I found myself allowing her some credit on the first two points. But her argument about considering the “actual criminals” swept up in the CECOT made-for-TV ad campaign had the same effect on me as fingernails being dragged across an old chalkboard.
The argument that some people are so evil that they don’t deserve to be treated with even a modicum of dignity or respect, and that all those “niceties” of the rule of law - e.g., presumption of innocence, due process, etc. - simply don’t apply to them is an invitation to thuggery, vigilantism, and anarchy. Ms. Weiss’s inability - or unwillingness - to see that horrendous flaw in her rationale makes everything else irrelevant.
She is quite clearly just one more powerful person in Trump’s thrall who is untethered to a set of defensible values, and who has no understanding of the role of a free press in a functional democracy. So many weak, greedy, and corruptible people today - sad!