CBS News staffers are coming to terms with the news that controversial commentator Bari Weiss is their new editor-in-chief, as the storied network’s owner Paramount Skydance acquires her Substack-based publication the Free Press in a reported $150m deal.
In conversations with the Guardian, six current network employees expressed a mixture of apprehension, skepticism and frustration over the appointment. “A throwing up emoji is not enough of a reflection of the feelings in here,” one particularly incensed CBS News employee said in a text message.
“It’s utterly depressing. Somebody who has zero experience in television news or even hard news for that matter… but with a clearly defined political agenda,” said another staffer. “It’s hard to see this as anything more than an attempt to bend the knee completely.”
Well yeah. And that’s been the case since at least the 50s, and despite the overwhelming blatant obviousness of it, mass media studies still regularly report media has no effect on its audience/victims. Because to question that is to undermine it. God, can you just imagine a world where people weren’t influenced to consume or react to various stimuli? It’d be mayhem!