To write or not to write?
CBS News staffers were grappling with conflicting orders Monday, according to three people familiar with the matter, after some producers at the Paramount Skydance news unit urged reporters and journalists to respond to an eyebrow-raising memo from new Editor in Chief Bari Weiss that drew criticism last week from the Writers Guild of America. In the memo, Weiss asked staffers to tell her “how you spend your working hours” and what they thought of CBS News, so that she and editorial employees could be “aligned on achieving a shared vision for CBS News.”
Within hours of the memo surfacing, the WGA counseled union members at CBS News not to answer the missive until CBS provided more details on what its purpose was, including whether their replies could serve as “a basis for discipline, discharge, or layoff.”
Weiss was named editor in chief at CBS News last week by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, and CBS News staffers have been roiled since that time. Weiss, a digital entrepreneur and opinion writer who built The Free Press, has no experience running a mainstream TV-news outlet, and little history in helping traditional journalists navigate the challenges to finding facts. She has a direct line to Ellison, while Tom Cibrowski, a former ABC executive who came aboard as CBS News president earlier this year, has been tasked with working alongside Weiss and lending his expertise.
CBS News declined to make executives available for comment.
The Paramount news drama takes place as most employees are fearful they are about to lose their jobs. Paramount executives have said they intend to cut the company’s workforce significantly in order to trim costs. Details on staff layoffs are expected to be revealed by Paramount’s next earnings report.
One person familiar with the newsroom said staffers were dealing with “mass confusion,” because they have been urged by some of their superiors to file notes to Weiss, and their union has told them the exact opposite. Some producers are not covered by a union contract at CBS News and may feel pressure to get employees to follow the new boss’ orders, according to people familiar with the matter.
There is good reason to shake up CBS News. The division has suffered through a parade of senior executives over the last few years, none of them able to buck recent trends and gain more traction for weekday standards “CBS Evening News” and “CBS Mornings,” which continue to rest in third place when compared with time-slot competitors from NBC News and ABC News. At the same time, CBS News already enjoys a hard-won trust with a large set of viewers, and its “CBS Sunday Morning” and “60 Minutes” are some of the best known news brands on TV. Among U.S. adults who have at least some trust in the information they get from national news organizations, according to Pew Research Center, 51% trust CBS News. Only ABC News and NBC News have more trust among this group, and CBS News is on par with both CNN and PBS.
