Ever since Bari Weiss took over the reins of the news division at CBS, it has been a roiling mess of media outrage on display. Seeing the same media figures who endlessly mewl about President Trump’s supposed threats against reporters turn around and freely demonize Ms. Weiss and her on-air guests has been an amazing display of obliviousness.
It is literally acceptable for them to slander other journalists, as she has absorbed steady verbal condemnation since rising to her current role. The irony is that Weiss was previously chased out of the New York Times for her “unacceptable” position of trending close to the center at times. As a result, instead of tolerating her stance, she was hectored out of the paper, started up her own media outlet (The Free Press), and then rose to the “unacceptable” position of commanding a network news division.
Well done, you media hysterics; you created the very thing you are railing about today. So now there is a need to create as much tension and controversy at CBS News as possible. Since the arrival of Weiss and her desire to repair the tattered reputation of that news division, there has been a steady flow of distemper heard, as if the simple effort of being evenhanded in the presentation of news in the Trump era is akin to dumping rat poison down a well.
There is no shortage of outlets willing to give a voice (anonymously) to those figures inside CBS News who are aghast at being held to a differing standard of journalism. There have been several examples of on-air figures delivering verbal opposition to the changes being performed.
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As a result, we have been promised something approaching an internal civil war at the network. Instead, we have seen meek departures of those who are allegedly most aggrieved. One producer left after a decades-long career. Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson both left the network after they were pulled from the “CBS Evening News” desk. A medical contributor left in February after connections to the Epstein files were exposed.
Also jumping ship recently was the network’s January 6 obsessive, Scott MacFarlane. He cited the reason as seeking “independence, and finding new spaces to share my work.” Laughably, the journalist who delivered a notable left-leaning bent in his reporting went way left-wing, as his new “space” is with the Democratic Party PAC-founded outlet Meidas Touch.
Former CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane tries to defend his decision to join the lefties at MeidasTouch by suggesting people who noticed are the problem "The FCC chair said “same job, new duty station.” I actually like that. It is the same job and it is a new duty station at the… pic.twitter.com/d73MNk260u
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) March 26, 2026
Former CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane tries to defend his decision to join the lefties at MeidasTouch by suggesting people who noticed are the problem "The FCC chair said “same job, new duty station.” I actually like that. It is the same job and it is a new duty station at the Capitol in both cases, but reporting for you from a different organization. As for the press secretary saying that I'm a veteran CBS reporter, not a veteran CBS reporter. I am a former CBS reporter, but I am a veteran reporter and here to make news and break news. And I'll say this about the White House."
This past Sunday, Anderson Cooper signed off from “60 Minutes” for the last time, after a 20-year stint. He gave some veiled criticism of the disputes that have emerged in recent months with the program and the new management.
Things should evolve and change, but I hope the core of what ’60 Minutes’ is always remains. I think the independence of ’60 Minutes’ has been critical. I think the trust it has with viewers is critical to the success of ’60 Minutes.’
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Which brings us to the case of Sharyn Alfonsi. She is the reporter who has a spotty record of journalism at the program. Alfonsi is the one who delivered the hit piece on Ron DeSantis and vaccine distribution in Florida that was so flawed it had been debunked BEFORE its broadcast. She was also the focus of the non-troversy this past December when her report on the El Salvador prison where deportees have been sent was held by Weiss. The shrieking was piercing.
The initial claim at the time was that Weiss was censoring Alfonsi; then, when it was learned that the news director was calling for more reporting to be done for the sake of balance, the next claim was that she was sanitizing the harsh news at the direction of the White House. That is to say, a news director requesting that more journalism take place was completely out of line.
That this sort of “meddling” had not been witnessed at “60 Minutes” prior was the main argument being made. This was revealed when the segment ultimately ran weeks later, and the telling component was that following the broadcast, there was little to be heard about the import of the piece and the trenchant journalism on display. It was clear that the noise that was generated was not over content, but in the dastardly manner in which an esteemed reporter from the program had been called out for her work.
Since the episode, Alfonsi has not been skittish about criticising Weiss, either directly or through allusions to management and recent decisions. Earlier this month, she was accepting a media award for courage from the Washington Press Club, and in her acceptance speech, she laid into the network. Alfonsi seems intent on generating her firing, as she was willing to be rather acerbic about her outlet.
“I will not linger on the internal mechanics of the dust-up at CBS that led to our Cecot story being pulled, but we have to be honest about what it represents. It wasn’t an isolated editorial argument. In my view, it was the result of a more aggressive contagion: the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear.”
She followed that with a blithe comment about lawyers, which was a reveal. It was reported that Alfonsi retained the services of industry lawyer Brian Freedman as a sign she was expecting an exit negotiation. Freedman brokered the buyout of Megyn Kelly, to the tune of tens of millions, and it seems Sharyn was anticipating a similar scenario. She may be dashed on a cash-out scheme.
As it appears likely, rather than being handed her pink slip and entering a buyout negotiation, the network is simply content to let her contract expire. That takes place at the end of this month, so there is little to expect in the form of a settlement deal.
That is something you might think a seasoned reporter skilled in fact-finding would have looked into before retaining the services of a costly litigator. But that seems to be in line with the quality of investigations Alfonsi has displayed over the years. It is the kind of journalism that Bari Weiss seems to be weeding out, and if it is taking place through attrition rather than expulsion, all the better for the network going forward.
