really hoping bari weiss gets her name added to the list of people who briefly got a career bump from sucking up to fascists and then spent the rest of their lives swimming in shit. how’s that great private sector job for pam bondi working out?
B-Z_B-S on
(From the article): “The 60 Minutes correspondent who clashed with the head of CBS News over her report on migrants deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison issued a dire public warning this week about “corporate meddling” in journalism.
Sharyn Alfonsi made a series of thinly veiled remarks critical of CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss during a speech Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington after receiving a Ridenhour Courage Prize for “life-long defense of the public interest and passionate commitment to social justice.” “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,” she said, according to The Guardian. “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. It’s hard to watch.” Alfonsi also said that “corporate calculations” were affecting journalism, saying, “Some executives are asking not, ‘Is the story true?’ but, ‘Is it good for business?’”
Alfonsi didn’t mention any executives by name, but the audience booed when another speaker mentioned Weiss earlier in the event, according to The Guardian. Spokespeople for CBS News and 60 Minutes didn’t immediately return requests for comment from The Independent. Alfonsi’s speech followed the December leak of a memo in which she complained that Weiss had “spiked” her story without explanation. In a subsequent leaked memo, Weiss — accused by critics of being “Trump-friendly” — said the segment didn’t “present the administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT” and said that “we need to push much harder” to get officials “on the record.”
During her Thursday speech, Alfonsi acknowledged that she refused to change her report after she was unable to arrange an interview with an administration official. “Not because I’m a pain in the ass, which I am, but because the story was factually correct, and I argued that any change to it might reflect poorly on CBS and 60 Minutes,” she said.
Alfonsi also said she believed she “was doing my job, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared .”“Fear is a funny thing — it can paralyze you, or it can point you to exactly what needs to be protected,” she said. “Right now, our industry is afraid of the wrong things. We’re afraid of offending power. We’re afraid of losing access. We’re afraid of another baseless lawsuit. But what we should all be afraid of is silence.” Alfonsi also said she learned during her first job as a waiter that there’s “a fine line between being a team player and being an accomplice,” and revealed that someone apparently tried to “scare me into silence” by having a SWAT team sent to her house several days after the CECOT segment was held.
Alfonsi’s previous awards include an Emmy for her work at 60 Minutes but she admitted she was concerned about her professional future amid uncertainty about whether she’ll return for the program’s 59th season in September. “Thank you for this award. I didn’t know that the theme was hope. My hope recently has been that I still have a job,” she said. “And every morning I wake up to another headline that says I’ve been fired.””
Choice-of-SteinsGate on
Weiss is the worst.
She’s a fraud and she’s shamelessly self-congratulatory in spite of her many flaws and unethical approach to what she thinks is “journalism”
She’s another “anti-woke” fanatic and perpetual victim of the nebulous, “radical left” boogeyman and its “cancel culture,” “DEI” this, gender that, and whatever demon of the week is ruining western civilization.
She panders to conservatives with culture wars and grievance politics and calls it journalism.
She brands herself as another repressed voice speaking truth to power, but she obfuscates facts, misrepresents herself, and exploits and lies about others for stories that she falsely presents as truth seeking; disguising her unethical behavior as challenging the status quo.
And beyond all that, she’s utterly unqualified for her new job.
That said, Trump has appointed loyalists into director positions within agencies like the FCC where they carry out his authoritarian whims against his critics in the media; applying regulatory pressures on companies to silence those who criticize him and/or his policies. And in Weiss’s case, she’s particularly accommodating of the president.
It shouldn’t have to be said, but if you have any principles at all, you don’t submit to the demands of a wanna-be dictator hell bent on tightening the government’s grip on the media—no matter the cost.
Because as a consequence of surrendering to Trump’s unconstitutional attacks against the media, he emerges feeling more empowered than ever as his administration continues its aggressive campaign against free speech and the free press.
OhioValleyCat on
It’s by design. The corporate meddling and editorial fear in journalism is one aspect of the unholy allliance that comprises the Right-wing Media Industrial Complex that has gained a foothold in American journalism since the 1980s with Fox News, Sinclair, right wing-talk radio, ultraconservative think tanks and more. The aspect is outright lies and propaganda to spread mistrust in the mainstream media and intellectuals and direct venom towards scapegoats such as immigrants and cultural minorities.
Off-GridForever on
6 media outlets all owned by billionaires. This needs to be dismantled. Americans have let the wealthy completely dominate them and as we can all see nothing good has resulted from it.
Amazing_Can_3240 on
Bari Weiss is nothing more than a gatekeeper for Israel and Trump.
pit_of_despair666 on
“Fear is a funny thing — it can paralyze you, or it can point you to exactly what needs to be protected,” she said. “Right now, our industry is afraid of the wrong things. We’re afraid of offending power. We’re afraid of losing access. We’re afraid of another baseless lawsuit. But what we should all be afraid of is silence. “ We need more journalists like this.
Ok_Agent_4838 on
CBS reporter shredding a Bari Weiss takeover as corporate meddling and editorial fear is rich coming from a network that’s been sanitizing its own coverage for decades
8 Comments
really hoping bari weiss gets her name added to the list of people who briefly got a career bump from sucking up to fascists and then spent the rest of their lives swimming in shit. how’s that great private sector job for pam bondi working out?
(From the article): “The 60 Minutes correspondent who clashed with the head of CBS News over her report on migrants deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison issued a dire public warning this week about “corporate meddling” in journalism.
Sharyn Alfonsi made a series of thinly veiled remarks critical of CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss during a speech Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington after receiving a Ridenhour Courage Prize for “life-long defense of the public interest and passionate commitment to social justice.” “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,” she said, according to The Guardian. “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. It’s hard to watch.” Alfonsi also said that “corporate calculations” were affecting journalism, saying, “Some executives are asking not, ‘Is the story true?’ but, ‘Is it good for business?’”
Alfonsi didn’t mention any executives by name, but the audience booed when another speaker mentioned Weiss earlier in the event, according to The Guardian. Spokespeople for CBS News and 60 Minutes didn’t immediately return requests for comment from The Independent. Alfonsi’s speech followed the December leak of a memo in which she complained that Weiss had “spiked” her story without explanation. In a subsequent leaked memo, Weiss — accused by critics of being “Trump-friendly” — said the segment didn’t “present the administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT” and said that “we need to push much harder” to get officials “on the record.”
During her Thursday speech, Alfonsi acknowledged that she refused to change her report after she was unable to arrange an interview with an administration official. “Not because I’m a pain in the ass, which I am, but because the story was factually correct, and I argued that any change to it might reflect poorly on CBS and 60 Minutes,” she said.
Alfonsi also said she believed she “was doing my job, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared .”“Fear is a funny thing — it can paralyze you, or it can point you to exactly what needs to be protected,” she said. “Right now, our industry is afraid of the wrong things. We’re afraid of offending power. We’re afraid of losing access. We’re afraid of another baseless lawsuit. But what we should all be afraid of is silence.” Alfonsi also said she learned during her first job as a waiter that there’s “a fine line between being a team player and being an accomplice,” and revealed that someone apparently tried to “scare me into silence” by having a SWAT team sent to her house several days after the CECOT segment was held.
Alfonsi’s previous awards include an Emmy for her work at 60 Minutes but she admitted she was concerned about her professional future amid uncertainty about whether she’ll return for the program’s 59th season in September. “Thank you for this award. I didn’t know that the theme was hope. My hope recently has been that I still have a job,” she said. “And every morning I wake up to another headline that says I’ve been fired.””
Weiss is the worst.
She’s a fraud and she’s shamelessly self-congratulatory in spite of her many flaws and unethical approach to what she thinks is “journalism”
She’s another “anti-woke” fanatic and perpetual victim of the nebulous, “radical left” boogeyman and its “cancel culture,” “DEI” this, gender that, and whatever demon of the week is ruining western civilization.
She panders to conservatives with culture wars and grievance politics and calls it journalism.
She brands herself as another repressed voice speaking truth to power, but she obfuscates facts, misrepresents herself, and exploits and lies about others for stories that she falsely presents as truth seeking; disguising her unethical behavior as challenging the status quo.
And beyond all that, she’s utterly unqualified for her new job.
That said, Trump has appointed loyalists into director positions within agencies like the FCC where they carry out his authoritarian whims against his critics in the media; applying regulatory pressures on companies to silence those who criticize him and/or his policies. And in Weiss’s case, she’s particularly accommodating of the president.
It shouldn’t have to be said, but if you have any principles at all, you don’t submit to the demands of a wanna-be dictator hell bent on tightening the government’s grip on the media—no matter the cost.
Because as a consequence of surrendering to Trump’s unconstitutional attacks against the media, he emerges feeling more empowered than ever as his administration continues its aggressive campaign against free speech and the free press.
It’s by design. The corporate meddling and editorial fear in journalism is one aspect of the unholy allliance that comprises the Right-wing Media Industrial Complex that has gained a foothold in American journalism since the 1980s with Fox News, Sinclair, right wing-talk radio, ultraconservative think tanks and more. The aspect is outright lies and propaganda to spread mistrust in the mainstream media and intellectuals and direct venom towards scapegoats such as immigrants and cultural minorities.
6 media outlets all owned by billionaires. This needs to be dismantled. Americans have let the wealthy completely dominate them and as we can all see nothing good has resulted from it.
Bari Weiss is nothing more than a gatekeeper for Israel and Trump.
“Fear is a funny thing — it can paralyze you, or it can point you to exactly what needs to be protected,” she said. “Right now, our industry is afraid of the wrong things. We’re afraid of offending power. We’re afraid of losing access. We’re afraid of another baseless lawsuit. But what we should all be afraid of is silence. “ We need more journalists like this.
CBS reporter shredding a Bari Weiss takeover as corporate meddling and editorial fear is rich coming from a network that’s been sanitizing its own coverage for decades