Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.Read more

There are growing concerns within CBS News that Bari Weiss could gut or even disband the network’s Standards and Practices team, with multiple sources telling The Independent that the new editor-in-chief has complained that the unit has “too much power” and she doesn’t see the point of keeping it around.

The internal rumblings within the CBS newsroom come as the head of Standards and Practices announced her resignation and the network disbanded its vaunted Race and Culture unit during parent company Paramount’s brutal and morale-crushing layoffs last month.

Sources explained to The Independent that the Race and Culture team – which advised on “context, tone and intention” of news programming – was initially supposed to be folded into the standards unit and largely survive the sweeping layoffs. Instead, only the unit's head – executive producer Alvin Patrick – was retained, and the rest of the team was let go.

“The team is responsible for ensuring editorial standards are met on scripts and provides daily reporting guidance. They literally uphold journalistic standards,” one CBS News reporter said, adding that it would be “crazy” for the network to dissolve Standards and Practices.

The Independent has reached out to CBS News for comment.

open image in gallery

Multiple sources said that Bari Weiss has groused within the CBS newsroom that the network’s standards and practices unit has “too much power.” (Getty)

“I’ve been hearing that standards will be eliminated or severely cut back. Bari has told people that she wants to get rid of standards and is shocked that they have so much power. She also asked openly, ‘What’s the point of standards?’” one CBS News insider claimed.

Weiss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the insider, Weiss had wondered aloud about why the network even had the Standards and Practices unit in a meeting with other network leaders, and had expressed concern about how powerful the team is to individuals in the newsroom.

The network reporter added that Weiss has been heard telling other employees that she’d like to get rid of the Standards and Practices unit because they “have too much power.” Another senior staffer also said that Weiss had mentioned this to an executive producer on one of the network’s news programs.

Weiss, a former New York Times columnist and the founder of the “anti-woke” digital outlet The Free Press, was hired by new Paramount chief David Ellison last month to lead the newsroom. Besides installing Weiss, who describes herself as “politically homeless” and a “radical centrist” as the top editor, Ellison also paid $150 million to purchase The Free Press.

Last year, Weiss and The Free Press – which is stridently pro-Israel – pointedly took aim at CBS News for reprimanding CBS Mornings anchor Tony Dokoupil for his combative interview with celebrated author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Following the interview, which saw Dokoupil claim Coates’ book on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” the anchor met with the standards and race and culture units to discuss his tone, body language and phrasing. In a follow-up editorial meeting, Adrienne Roark – then the president of news gathering and editorial – said that Dokoupil’s interview did not meet editorial standards.

Weiss, who labels herself a “Zionist fanatic,” published leaked audio recordings from the meeting, vehemently defended Dokoupil, and blasted the network as having an anti-Israel bias in multiple articles for The Free Press. At the same time, she was also broadly critical of how the network’s editorial standards and practices were applied.

“One last thing: Let’s just say we have pattern recognition around stories like these. So when two sources at CBS told The Free Press that this whole dustup involved the network’s ‘Race and Culture Unit,’ we weren’t shocked,” she wrote last year. Weiss also cited a CBS News source who complained that this “allowed greater bias to creep into editorial decisions at the network.”

Sources said that the year-old admonishment of Dokoupil, who admitted to violating CBS standards and practices but defended his aggressive questioning of Coates, is behind much of Weiss’ desire to defang or even eliminate the S&P team altogether.

“This is all coming from the Coates interview, where standards and race/culture were the ones pushing back on Tony,” the network insider claimed.

Another factor behind the potential dismantling of the Standards and Practices unit, according to the insider, is that they gave “the green light on the Gaza/Trump coverage on 60 Minutes,” referring to former Paramount chief Shari Redstone's consternation over certain stories on the newsmagazine. (Previously, she had publicly backed Dokoupil amid the Coates interview backlash.)

open image in gallery

‘This is all coming from the Coates interview, where standards and race/culture were the ones pushing back on Tony,’ one source told The Independent. (CBS)

Months before Paramount paid Donald Trump $16 million to settle a “meritless” lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which Redstone pushed for in order to secure an $8 billion merger with Ellison’s Skydance Media, she had grown increasingly critical of the Sunday night program.

Following a 60 Minutes segment in January about the war in Gaza, Redstone – a passionate supporter of pro-Israeli causes – complained to CBS News executives that she found the story to be antisemitic. The following day, the company brought in former CBS head Susan Zirinsky to oversee the news division’s standards.

A few months later, after Trump publicly called for CBS to be punished over a 60 Minutes story on Greenland and Ukraine, Redstone and other network executives asked the show to provide a list of Trump-related segments going forward.

“Redstone asked whether stories that could irritate Trump were correct and balanced, and inquired whether multiple stories that might draw Trump’s ire had to run on the same night, this person says,” Variety reported this past spring. “Two other people familiar with the ‘60 Minutes’ editorial process say Zirinsky and her team were specifically tasked with examining stories concerning the Middle East and politics.”

Amid ongoing tensions surrounding both the Trump settlement negotiations and increased corporate scrutiny of the program, longtime 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens abruptly resigned in April. He would soon be followed by CBS News chief Wendy McMahon.

Shortly after Weiss was hired by Ellison, whom staffers have criticized for seemingly shifting the newsroom to the right in order to curry favor with Trump, Claudia Milne – CBS News’ head of standards – handed in her resignation.

Status News reported that Milne “had grown increasingly uneasy about the newsroom’s direction under the Ellison family’s ownership” and that it was now openly becoming more favorable to the president. She also privately expressed concern about the appointment of former Trump appointee Kenneth Weinstein as the network’s ombudsman and the hiring of Weiss, who reports directly to Ellison.

Asked if Milne’s resignation last month suggested that the wheels were already in motion for Weiss to ultimately wipe out the standards unit, the network reporter said that appeared to be the case.

“Exactly. And they were supposed to fold the race and culture unit into standards, but instead, [the network] got rid of nearly all of them,” they stated.