‘It’s a Recipe for Disaster’: New Owner of CBS News Promised Trump ‘Unbiased Journalism,’ but Will Face ‘Clashes’ With Liberal Staff

The incoming owner of Paramount Global — the parent company of CBS Inc. and its subsidiary, CBS News — is promising to make major changes to the Tiffany Network in an attempt to eliminate left-wing bias and diversity initiatives, but veteran media observers see nothing but trouble when it comes to trying to get CBS News’s overwhelmingly liberal corps of producers and correspondents to produce “unbiased journalism.” The Federal Communications Commission approved Skydance Media’s $8 billion acquisition of Paramount on July 24. Skydance — which is owned by David Ellison, the son of the world’s second-richest person, Larry Ellison, a supporter of President Trump — has vowed to eliminate Paramount’s aggressive diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, most of which have already been scrapped as Paramount got itself in shape for FCC review. What Paramount has not been able to address — and what Mr. Ellison’s general counsel, in a Washington meeting and in a formal letter to the FCC memorializing the meeting, promised to deal with — is bias at CBS News. Far from managing the problem, Paramount has in recent months been on the defensive against its own news division, most notably “60 Minutes,” which aired a weekly series of anti-Trump segments even as Paramount was trying to settle a lawsuit from Mr. Trump regarding bias at “60 Minutes.” CBS News — which uses public airwaves and therefore, unlike cable news channels, is legally obligated to produce fair and objective news coverage — has been accused of liberal bias for the last 50 years, going back to its coverage of the war in Vietnam. In the 1980s, it was the target of a failed shareholders’ campaign, led by Senator Helms, to “be Dan Rather’s boss.” The stars of ’60 Minutes.’ Paramount GlobalBias at CBS was the topic of a 2001 New York Times best seller, “Bias,” by Bernard Goldberg. If anything, the scrutiny over bias has intensified in recent years and months, and CBS News’s staff has doubled down and wrapped itself in the mantle of journalistic independence. Now, with Paramount pledging reforms, top media reporters are skeptical that the new owner will make any headway with its troubled news division, which greatly underperforms its competition at the same time as it’s viewed as the most liberal and reactionary of the TV news networks. Speaking on his podcast on Friday night, a renowned political journalist, Mark Halperin, described bias on “60 Minutes,” “in the realm of politics,” as “abysmal and outrageous.” “I’m not a big fan of the liberal bias of ‘60 Minutes,’” he said. “I really do believe that over the last 10 years their liberal bias and anti-Trump coverage has been as egregious as anybody else’s, in the nature of the content, but also because they have so much influence and they’re widely and wrongly seen in politics as fair and neutral.” Then-CBS anchor and managing editor, Scott Pelley, and then-president of CBS News, David Rhodes, speak during the ‘CBS Evening News Presentation’ panel during the CBS portion of the 2011 Summer TCA Tour held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 3, 2011, in Beverly Hills, California. Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesMatt Belloni, the closely read entertainment industry reporter, discussed the planned changes with a reporter from Bloomberg, Lucas Shaw, on a recent episode of his podcast “The Town.” Mr. Belloni noted that Skydance said it would hire an ombudsman and asked, “What the hell is a CBS News ombudsman going to do?”“That was one of the concessions that they made to Brendan Carr and the FCC is that not only will they eliminate their DEI programs, but they will add a viewer representative ombudsman to CBS News to monitor bias, wokeness, whatever you want to call it and what? Report back to the authorities? Go public? What is the ombudsman at CBS News going to do?”Mr. Shaw said that it is not unusual for a news outlet to have an ombudsman, but asked, “To whom is the ombudsman going to report? Are we going to have the government vetting this at all? Vetting the news reports from CBS?”(Skydance says the ombudsman will report to the “president of CBS News.” Skydance is reported to be in negotiations with David Rhodes, a former CBS News and Fox News executive, to return to CBS for the role.)CBS News has been denounced by President Trump for its editing of the ’60 Minutes’ interview with Vice President Harris. CBS NewsMr. Belloni suggested that someone who might be more “hated” than the ombudsman is the co-founder of the Free Press, Bari Weiss. Multiple reports have said that Mr. Ellison is in talks to buy the Free Press and give Ms. Weiss a non-managerial position, working with Mr. Rhodes or whomever else is hired to be president of CBS News to help rein in the network’s left-wing slant. However, anonymous staffers have suggested that Ms. Weiss, who famously quit the New York Times claiming she was being bullied, is not equipped to handle the challenging environment at CBS News. An unnamed staffer told the New York Post the anchors and producers at CBS think that, as usual, they will dig in and outlast the latest slate of new executives. Another source suggested the staff might try to get Ms. Weiss fired, and she will “have an axe in her head in three minutes.”A recent, short-lived president of CBS News, Neeraj Khemlani, was driven out after a drumbeat of articles in the New York Post claiming he was “rude.”Mr. Shaw said he does not think the idea of hiring Ms. Weiss “sounds great.”“Not as a spite to the Free Press. … You’re going to come in and fire thousands of people or hundreds of people and sell stuff and at the same time you’re going to spend a couple hundred million dollars on a news organization that doesn’t make money and is run by a controversial person who’s going to alienate most of your journalists, it feels like a recipe for disaster,” Mr. Shaw said. The entertainment journalists Lucas Shaw and Matt Belloni. YouTubeMr. Belloni speculated about how Ms. Weiss’s involvement would be received, saying, “Can you imagine a ‘60 Minutes’ story meeting where Leslie Stahl is going over a story and all of a sudden Bari Weiss chimes in and says, ‘You know, I think that could be perceived as a liberal slant on that story’? Leslie Stahl would give her the double middle finger.”The two journalists debated whether Mr. Ellison’s promises were simply lip service to secure the FCC’s approval of his deal. Mr. Belloni said he believes Mr. Ellison wants to buy the Free Press. However, Mr. Shaw said he thinks there will be “many clashes ahead between the leadership of this company and their news division because there’s going to be an effort … to come in and say ‘we need to be more balanced in our coverage,’ and that never goes over well when you say that to a news organization.’”The FCC’s approval of the Skydance deal appeared to be on hold for months as Paramount sought to settle President Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS. Once Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to resolve the lawsuit, there was a flurry of activity as Skydance executives met with the FCC to lay out their commitments for Paramount and CBS moving forward.CBS also announced that it was canceling “The Late Show,” hosted by a frequent Trump critic, Stephen Colbert, in May. However, CBS said the decision was “purely” a financial one, and subsequent reports said the show was losing $40 million a year.The new format of the ‘CBS Evening News,’ co-anchored by John Dickerson, is failing to connect with viewers. CBS NewsOn July 24, the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, announced the FCC had approved the Skydance merger, saying, “Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum. Skydance will also adopt measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media.”He said the changes will “enable CBS to operate in the public interest and focus on fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage.”Mr. Carr told CNBC on Friday that Skydance’s commitment regarding diversity initiatives and unbiased reporting is what led the FCC to approve the merger.

‘It’s a Recipe for Disaster’: New Owner of CBS News Promised Trump ‘Unbiased Journalism,’ but Will Face ‘Clashes’ With Liberal Staff

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