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Barbarians At The Gate is the classic 1989 book about the hostile takeover of RJR Nabisco that became a metaphor for a powerful established entity facing an aggressive force from outside. Now staff at CBS News, the once mighty TV network that became just another tediously woke liberal echo-chamber, are facing their own, even more terrifying version: Conservatives At The Gate. And the bloodletting has already begun. Swingeing job cuts are underway, with CBS's formidable new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss telling staff this week that an 'enormously difficult' period lies ahead. On Wednesday, two CBS anchors – Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson, both of whom helmed the Saturday morning show – were reportedly among the first to go, along with their executive producer. On Thursday, Variety reported that Gayle King – the face of CBS's morning show for more than a decade – is expected to depart as an anchor next year. It's just the beginning. Around 100 people at CBS News are expected to lose their jobs in coming days, with a further 2,000 across Paramount, its parent company. Weiss – personally appointed by David Ellison, Paramount's billionaire new owner – was indeed brought in as a disruptor. The former New York Times columnist who gave up the day job to strike out and launch her own independent title, The Free Press, with a total focus on responsible and fair journalism, has been in her new post less than month. The impact has been nothing short of seismic. In truth, CBS – founded in 1927 and once home to such journalistic titans as Walter Cronkite – has been suffering for some time. With the advent of Covid and under the staunchly liberal Biden administration, left-wing journalists were given carte blanche to use their platform to advance a myopic political agenda at odds with the majority of ordinary Americans. The result was an exodus of viewers and the near-destruction of a once-venerable institution. There is perhaps no one in America better qualified than Weiss, 41, to right the ship – and not least because she has embraced her own ideological transformation. 'I'm the first to admit that I was a sufferer of what conservatives at the time would have called TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome,' Weiss said earlier this year, revealing that she had wept the first time Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Now, she says, the 'overzealous, out-of-touch, hysterical reaction' to the president on the left is 'extraordinarily authoritarian and totalitarian in its impulses.' That message has stuck fear into CBS's Midtown Manhattan headquarters – where, it seems, many have refused to take the memo. One CBS insider told the Daily Mail that 'everyone is nervous.' Another said staff are 'running scared.' 'I'd say that she's definitely going to make her mark,' a third source said. 'She's in charge, and we know it. We are being flooded in memos. She's watching every aspect of what we do, critiquing where she thinks we are being more biased. There is mandatory training to make sure we're objective, but it's really just telling us how to make sure to tell the conservative side of stuff.' Following Wednesday's news of job cuts, that third source texted the Daily Mail: 'Are you hiring?' Perhaps no greater endorsement of Weiss came this month in the form of whining Guardian column, breathlessly headlined: 'Bari Weiss is a weird and worrisome choice as top editor for CBS News.' David Ellison isn't worried. Following the buyout of Paramount by Ellison's media production company Skydance in an $8 billion deal this August, the son of Larry Ellison – the software entrepreneur and second-richest man in the world – turned his attention to Weiss's Free Press. After dramatically quitting The New York Times in 2020 – at the height of the George Floyd protests – and publishing an open essay criticizing the 'hostile work environment' at a paper beset by liberal 'tribalism,' Weiss decided to launch her own news website despite difficulties being felt across the media industry. Her mission statement was simple: The Free Press, she said, would be 'built on the ideals that once were the bedrock of great American journalism: honesty, doggedness, and fierce independence. 'We publish investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it actually is – with the quality once expected from the legacy press, but the fearlessness of the new.' To call it a runaway success would be a profound understatement. What started as a Substack run out of Weiss's Los Angeles kitchen morphed into a powerhouse newsroom with more than 1.5 million paying subscribers, 50 employees and offices on both coasts – all in less than three years. Earlier this month, Ellison bought the site for a reported $150 million in cash and Paramount stock. Weiss remains in charge of the site while also taking on her new role at CBS. Writing in a letter to all CBS staff on her first day, Weiss reiterated those principles of 'factual' and 'fair' reporting once again. 'Journalism that embraces a wide spectrum of views and voices,' she wrote. Her appointment has been welcomed by the White House and the president himself. In July, Paramount paid a $16 million settlement to Trump after he sued over a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris on CBS's flagship show 60 Minutes, which he said had been selectively edited. Cut forward to October 14, Weiss's seventh day at the office, and the network's new boss had a simple question for a room full of 60 Minutes producers. Why, she is reported to have asked, does the country think you are biased? Her question is said to have been met with 'stunned awkwardness.' A few days prior, on October 9, she had told staff to be 'more aggressive' in booking guests, pointing out that she had personally texted Hillary Clinton to invite her to discuss the Israel-Hamas ceasefire on TV. She had also secured interviews with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – Weiss is Jewish and a self-proclaimed Zionist – and Trump's Gaza team, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. She's reportedly been in talks with major conservative news hosts and commentators – among them Fox News anchor Bret Baier and CNN's Scott Jennings – looking to make fresh hires. 'I love to win,' she is said to have told a group of senior producers. 'Everyone is stepping it up at work and in the meetings she is in,' one senior writer who has worked at CBS for 15 years told the Daily Mail. 'The news division is freaking out.' 'Everyone is waiting for the shoe to drop,' said a 60 Minutes producer. 'We know there will be more change, but we don't know what it'll be.' If Bari Weiss has proved anything, it's that we won't have to wait long to find out.
