Mediaite One Sheet: The Bari Weiss Test, Trump’s Collins Blow-Up and More!

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Tuesday, February 3, 2026 – A five-minute briefing on what media newsletters are saying, reporting, and surfacing

The Big Picture

The collision between media and politics is no longer subtext — it’s the story. Bari Weiss is testing whether her anti-cancel-culture brand survives when she’s the one deciding who stays at CBS. Washington Post staffers are bracing for hundreds of layoffs while their billionaire owner hosts the Defense Secretary who banned their reporters from the Pentagon. Trump unloaded on Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office after she pressed him on Epstein survivors’ concerns, calling her “the worst reporter” and attacking her for not smiling. Ted Sarandos went to Capitol Hill to defend an $83 billion acquisition and spent most of his time being accused of pushing “transgender ideology” on children. MeidasTouch’s Ben Meiselas told The Ankler that corporate news has “betrayed their audiences” — and claims a billion views a month to prove it.

Today’s sources: Status | The Ankler | Puck | Breaker | Poynter | Politico Playbook | CNN Reliable Sources | Page Six Hollywood | Page Six | Feed Me | The Free Press | Mediaite | Newsbusters | Simon Owens | Awful Announcing | CJR | The Desk | Barrett Media

Top Story

THE BARI WEISS TEST: ‘ANTI-CANCEL CULTURE’ WHEN YOU’RE THE ONE DECIDING

(Sipa via AP Images)

Peter Attia, the longevity doctor and YouTube wellness influencer whom Bari Weiss proudly announced as a CBS News health contributor just days ago, was revealed in Friday’s Epstein document dump to have exchanged dozens of crude emails with the convicted sex offender. CBS News’s handling of Attia has now become a referendum on Weiss’s entire editorial project — and she appears ready to die on this hill.

Status’s Oliver Darcy took his predictably critical approach to Weiss, a subject he’s covered with near-obsessive focus since she took the CBS job. After crude emails between Attia and Jeffrey Epstein surfaced in Friday’s document dump — including the now-infamous “pussy is, indeed, low carb” line — Darcy reported that CBS staffers expected swift termination. Instead, Weiss went quiet. The decision to pull a “60 Minutes” rerun featuring Attia was made by the show’s executive producer, Tanya Simon — not Weiss. Darcy, citing anonymous sources who spoke only critically of the editor-in-chief, reported she is “reluctant to bow to what she views as a liberal ‘cancel culture’ mob.”

A “veteran news executive” told Darcy: “It’s just a very strange battle to fight. You’re trying to save CBS News from irrelevance. You’re trying to restore trust. And you pick a contributor who has clearly engaged in repulsive, abhorrent behavior.” The framing was harsh — but then again, Darcy’s framing of Weiss always is.

Mediaite founder Dan Abrams offered the counter-read. “Weiss built her entire business out of opposing those excesses,” Abrams wrote. “Wouldn’t it be strange, even professionally perilous, for her to abandon that principle now?” He pushed back on an anonymous PR pro who told Status that Weiss is “naive” — arguing that take “completely ignores that Weiss was hired for this position because of her willingness to buck the pressure, not in spite of it.”

Feed Me‘s Emily Sundberg added context: Attia has stepped down as Chief Science Officer at David Protein, CBS recently pulled one of his segments, and his future at the network “remains uncertain.”

The Free Press — Weiss’s own outlet — ran a piece by Weiss’s wife, Nellie Bowles, explaining that her name appeared in the Epstein files because she once met him for coffee as a Times reporter. Bowles’s regret? Not that she met him, but that she “had the chance to profile one of the darkest, most interesting characters of that moment, and I didn’t.”

QUICK TAKE: The institutional question from CBS is clarifying: when a scandal touches your network, who decides what’s forgivable? Weiss built her brand on resisting groupthink and mob-driven firings. Now she’s learning that the mob notices when you’re the one holding the sword.

Three Takes

WASHINGTON POST LAYOFFS ARE IMMINENT: OBSERVERS OBSESS OVER BEZOS SILENCE

Three reads on what the Washington Post layoffs mean — and what it says about the billionaire who won’t say anything.

Breaker’s Lachlan Cartwright got the operational details…

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