The CBS/Paramount deal to aquire Bari Weiss’ The Free Press for about the same cost as the budget for One Battle After Another is now complete. Weiss announced it, along with her mission statement, on their YouTube channel.
She lays out her plans to stay CEO and Editor in Chief of The Free Press, along with guiding CBS News in a better direction (60 Minutes, Sunday Morning).
CBS needs Bari Weiss more than she needs CBS. This is a rescue mission, not just for network news that is on the same path as everything else the Left controls and claimed for their own (legacy media, Hollywood, the Oscars, etc) but for the country. Having a polarized press has done damage to this country in so many ways, on the Left and the Right. But these were never two equal sides. The Left has “cultural hegemony.” In the Obama era, wealth and power shifted to the Left. That meant as politics married culture, everything was concentrated on the Left and at the top.
That meant the other half of the country with less power no longer had representation anywhere in American life. They were being told to “conform or else.” But it’s even worse than that. It wasn’t just political division. It was one side with all of the power demonizing the other side with less power.
That has been a disaster for network news, but for Hollywood, too. That the new documentary about George Orwell is yet another anti-Trump screed is a tragedy and of course it will get nominated and it might be even win because Hollywood is of ONE MESSAGE and ONE MIND. That is killing their brand, or maybe has killed their brand and it may never recover.
Appealing to the powerful, moneyed side means everyone gets paid who conforms. Defying them, confronting them, attempting to tell the truth means less money, less power. They punish you by any means at their disposal. Blacklisting you is the easiest way.
Bari Weiss was punished for offering up an op-ed from a different point of view than the elite minority. She was viciously attacked on Twitter (I know, I was there, I defended her), bullied by the woke staff and eventually resigned. She started The Free Press and launched an independent media revolution. Coming back now and being asked to restructure CBS News is a miracle. It is good for America to finally have a chance for those locked away in their aristocracy to learn how to humanize the other half of the country.
Hollywood has been hit hard. They used to make movies for the people. Way back when, they could tell stories for the working and middle class but that’s because for much of its history, Hollywood was conscious of class differences. Movies, like journalism, was populist. They had to be because they wanted those movies to make money.
That has meant a crisis in storytelling because the only stories they want to tell revolve around identity because that’s the only way the ruling class feels any sense of collective purpose. If it’s about class, they lose, right? But those are the best stories. Just because all of the wealthy people like stories that paint them as good and everyone below them as bad doesn’t mean those are lasting stories that make any difference except to function as a magic mirror.
I miss the best stories that were universal. Hollywood, the news media, so much of our culture has decided half the country are human garbage at best — dangerous extremists at worse. It is 1984 but they’ll never figure that out. I think culture must be built around them. We must leave them behind if we’re ever to have great writing and great movies back. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. I’m old. I probably won’t live to see it anyway.
Now, Paramount/CBS wants ratings. They want to be relevant. They want people to trust them again. Oh, how I wish Hollywood and the Oscars would follow suit. I don’t see that happening any time soon. They don’t absorb failure because they make enough money with their corporate monopolies not to feel it. But we feel it. Those of us out here in the dark.
And yes, I know that critics of the deal will say that Bari is being added on to guide the public away from an anti-Israel message that proliferates throughout mainstream media. You can believe that if you want. I find it chilling we’ve arrived here where hating Jews is suddenly back in fashion. I guess some things never change, eh?
I look forward to being able to watch 60 Minutes again or anything on CBS. I tuned them out long ago. Congratulations, Bari Weiss for a success story and a happy ending.
