Paramount to buy Bari Weiss’ Free Press for up to – Business News
Paramount is getting ready to shell out as a lot as $200 million for Bari Weiss’ buzzy media enterprise, The Free Press — and hand her the keys to help steer CBS News — in a transfer that’s rattling an already shaken information division nonetheless reeling from the $8 billion Skydance-Paramount mega-merger.
Weiss, the previous New York Times opinion web page editor who launched The Free Press in 2022, is reportedly in line for a senior editorial position at CBS News as half of a deal that may fold her outlet into the new Paramount, in accordance to the Puck publication.
Paramount declined to remark, however Puck media reporter Dylan Byers pegged the potential buy price between $100 million and $200 million, with sources saying the talks are of their last phases.
The Free Press’ Honestly with Bari Weiss (pictured) hosts Senator Ted Cruz introduced by Uber and X on January 18, 2025 in Washington, DC. Getty Images for Uber, X and The Free Press
The deal comes on the heels of final month’s blockbuster merger between David Ellison’s Skydance Media and Paramount Global, which ended many years of Redstone household control and put CBS and CBS News firmly below Ellison’s watch.
The FCC signed off on the transaction after Ellison agreed to sweeping modifications at CBS News, together with putting in an ombudsman to police bias, dismantling DEI packages and promising to elevate “viewpoint diversity.”
Those concessions have already rattled the newsroom. One CBS insider advised Fox Business that the new ombudsman amounted to a “hall monitor,” whereas former anchors have publicly warned that CBS News’ custom of impartial reporting could possibly be in jeopardy.
Now the prospect of Weiss — a sharp-tongued critic of progressive orthodoxy who stop the Times after blasting the paper’s “illiberal environment” — moving into a management position has solely heightened tensions, in accordance to experiences.
Paramount CEO David Ellison, middle, with Andy Gordon, far left, and Josh Greenstein, second from left. Paramount
Weiss has carved out a status for difficult each the left and the appropriate, building The Free Press into a high-profile, subscriber-driven platform that publishes essays, interviews and investigative work exterior the standard media lanes.
Her potential arrival at CBS News would mark her most outstanding mainstream position since leaving the Times.
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The timing is no accident. As half of the Skydance-Paramount merger, Ellison has been below strain to show he can modernize CBS News and reverse years of rankings decline.
His $8 billion takeover was billed as a guess on revitalizing Paramount’s content material pipeline, however CBS News — long the crown jewel of American broadcast journalism — grew to become the flashpoint in Washington during the regulatory review.
Weiss will reportedly be in line for a senior editorial position at CBS News as soon as the deal is full. The Free Press
FCC officers grilled Ellison’s staff over CBS’s protection, finally conditioning approval on the creation of the ombudsman’s workplace and the elimination of DEI mandates.
The Paramount-Skydance merger was accepted after Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit introduced by President Trump in opposition to CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that he says was deceptively edited.
Paramount has not commented on the talks, and Weiss has saved quiet publicly.
The Post has additionally sought remark from Weiss.
