Today is the Day

Today is the day for CBS News employees to turn in their homework to the new principal.
Newly named CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is demanding swift action less than a week into her new job. Today, every staffer at CBS News faces a deadline to send her a memo detailing their role and providing their unvarnished opinion on the organization. According to Semafor, this directive signals Weiss’s eagerness to accelerate changes at the news giant.

Weiss framed the request as a necessary step to understand her new team, acknowledging that the newsroom is "a big place with functional titles and reporting structures that I’m learning.” She encouraged staff to include ideas on how to make CBS News “the most trusted and most consumed news source in the nation.”

She stressed that she wants substance over corporate jargon. "I’m not looking for a JD or words like synergy,” Weiss wrote, explaining that she wants to know: “I want to understand how you spend your working hours — and, ideally, what you’ve made (or are making) that you’re most proud of. I’m also interested in hearing your views on what’s working; what’s broken or substandard; and how we can be better. Please be blunt — it will help me greatly.”

The request was issued on Friday, just four days after Weiss arrived at CBS News following Paramount Global’s acquisition of her website, the Free Press, for an estimated $150 million. Since then, she has toured the New York and Washington bureaus and met with top anchors, including Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell, Status reports.

This move echoes a similar information-gathering request made earlier this year by Elon Musk—a noted Weiss fan—who asked federal employees for feedback while heading the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency.