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Bari Weiss, the founder of The Free Press, has been reportedly offered a very large sum of money ($200 million!?) for the outlet and a significant role at CBS News by its parent company, Paramount. Since unceremoniously telling her former employer, The New York Times, where to shove their job, she has spent a significant time and energy building a successful, fair-and-honest news media outlet.
Because Paramount is a multinational media company with many foreign ties and a left-wing legacy (even though David Ellison is now in charge), this deal is fraught with peril. For what it's worth, here's my advice to her:
- Do not sell The Free Press. If you do, it will be ruined in short order. Its integrity will be lost and you will have wasted all of that time and energy.
- Tell them you will accept nothing but full control over CBS News—including 60 Minutes. You must be in charge of all hiring, firing and editing decisions. And when you take over, gut the place and bring in real, sane journalists of all stripes—just like you've done at The Free Press. If things go well, The Free Press can become part of it all at a later point of your choosing.
Discussion (37)
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Unless the sale includes a no-compete clause, Weiss need not worry what CBS does with The Free Press. If they ruin it, she starts over with another Substack. She did it once, she can do it again. If they don't ruin it, she has a bigger platform than she has now. I see it as heads she wins, tails she wins.
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I'm not informed enough to have an opinion on whether this will be good or bad for any of the parties involved. Can only pray for improvements over what had been before.
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If they ruin it, and she has to start over, very valuable time will have been lost. I'd like to see outlets like The Free Press flourish uninterrupted. I'd love to see a thousand flourish.
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I don't really care about the parties involved. I want to see lots of news media companies that are reporting the truth.
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I doubt it. It took her little time to create The Free Press. If she started over she would carry over the good will from the first attempt, and it would go quicker. Look at how fast Tucker Carlson's startup took off after Fox canned him. (Yes, it has faltered since then, but that is due to Carlson, not his platform.)
I think you are taking council of your fears, focusing on the downside and ignoring the opportunities the deal offers.
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