‘Let’s Do the F*cking News!’ The New Yorker Goes Deep on Bari Weiss’s ‘Uneasy’ Start as CBS News Boss

A newly published profile in The New Yorker is providing a rare glimpse at Bari Weiss’s chaotic tenure at CBS News, where many staffers see her as an “uneasy fit.”

The article, published on Monday, detailed Weiss’s demeanor as she took the helm at CBS News after the network was purchased by Larry and David Ellison in August 2025, and questionable calls right off the bat:

It was apparent to many inside the network that Weiss, a digital-media native, was an uneasy fit in the more buttoned-up world of television news. She had donned a CBS baseball cap for her first editorial meeting, and ended the session by telling the room, “Let’s do the f*cking news!” At another meeting, Weiss urged staff to up their coverage of the protests unfolding in Iran, mentioning videos she’d seen online that “almost look like a movie scene.” One senior reporter with experience covering the country cautioned that some of what Weiss was citing were videos from protests three years earlier.

The profile also detailed a memo Weiss sent to all CBS staffers, inquiring about “how you spend your working hours,” a request that was reminiscent of a similar request that Elon Musk had sent government employees during his tenure as Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) boss.

“By the end of the day Tuesday, I’d like a memo from each person across our news organization,” the note read. “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.”

When Weiss is in the CBS News office, she’s surrounded by bodyguards, something a producer told The New Yorker was “offensive.”

“The implication was that we’re going to try to kill her,” the producer told the magazine.

It was apparent to many inside the network that Weiss, a digital-media native, was an uneasy fit in the more buttoned-up world of television news. She had donned a CBS baseball cap for her first editorial meeting, and ended the session by telling the room, “Let’s do the fucking news!” At another meeting, Weiss urged staff to up their coverage of the protests unfolding in Iran, mentioning videos she’d seen online that “almost look like a movie scene.” One senior reporter with experience covering the country cautioned that some of what Weiss was citing were videos from protests three years earlier.

Written by Clare Malone, The New Yorker piece also delved into Weiss’s humble beginnings in Pittsburgh before writing op-ed pieces at Columbia University, eventually leading to her rise as a prominent conservative voice at The New York Times, and then as co-founder of The Free Press.

It followed a similar chronicle of Weiss’s “bumpy” start at CBS, which appeared in The Times last week, a profile that Mediaite’s Colby Hall called “unsparing and specific.”

The article dropped a day after 60 Minutes finally aired a piece about inmate abuse at CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious prison, which Weiss had ordered pulled from the program weeks earlier.

Weiss pulled the story just before its scheduled Dec. 21 airing because “we do not present the administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT.” It was a decision widely panned as “political.”

CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi “flew from Texas to DC on Thursday to interview a Trump administration official, but that interview ‘did not materialize.’”

The report finally ran on Sunday, but without substantial input from the Trump administration.

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