Bari Weiss is the new editor-in-chief of CBS News after Paramount buys her website

NEW YORK (AP) — Paramount said Monday that it has bought the news and commentary website The Free Press and installed its founder, Bari Weiss, as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, saying it believes the country longs for news that is balanced and fact-based.

It's a bold step for the television network of Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and “60 Minutes,” long viewed by many conservatives as the personification of a liberal media establishment. The network is placing someone in a leadership role who has developed a reputation for resisting orthodoxy and fighting “woke” culture.

“I am confident her entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News,” said David Ellison, who took over this summer as the corporate leader overseeing the network when his company, Skydance, purchased Paramount. “This move is part of Paramount’s bigger vision to modernize content and the way it connects — directly and passionately — to audiences around the world.”

No purchase price was announced for The Free Press, which has grown to reach 1.5 million subscribers since Weiss started it in 2021 after leaving The New York Times as an opinion editor. When she left the Times, she wrote a letter of resignation that spoke of a culture of intolerance at the newspaper and said she was bullied by colleagues who disagreed with her.

Weiss will report directly to Ellison and partner with the current CBS News President Tom Cibrowski, who reports to Paramount executive George Cheeks.

Editor-in-chief is a new role at CBS News. Ellison said that Weiss will “shape editorial priorities, champion core values across platforms and lead innovation in how the organization reports and delivers the news.”

In a letter to CBS News employees on Monday, Weiss said that watching CBS was part of a family tradition growing up in Pittsburgh. Her goal in the next few weeks is to get to know the staff, she said.

“I want to hear from you about what’s working, what isn’t, and your thoughts on how we can make CBS News the most trusted news organization in America and the world,” Weiss wrote. “I’ll approach it the way any reporters would — with an open mind, a fresh notebook and an urgent deadline.”

Some at CBS News have been concerned about what they see as signs that the news division is moving in a direction more friendly to President Donald Trump. Paramount's merger with Skydance was approved by the administration shortly after Paramount settled the president's lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” Ellison has hired Kenneth Weinstein, former head of a conservative think tank and a Trump contributor, as an ombudsman to examine complaints about CBS News.

“60 Minutes,” which is two weeks into its new season, has been seeking an interview with Trump.

CBS isn’t the only news organization to face pressure from the president. He also settled a lawsuit against ABC News, has sued The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and is fighting a battle with The Associated Press over access.

Broadcast news organizations are generally fading in influence with the growth of online alternatives, and have aging audiences. CBS is generally third in popularity behind ABC and NBC, but “60 Minutes” and “CBS News Sunday Morning” have devoted fan bases.

Rather, who stepped down as anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News” in 2005, told The Associated Press that he did not know Weiss and hopes she gets to know the people at CBS News before making any big changes.

“No one has to send a memo to everyone down the line at CBS News about what is going on with journalism and this presidency,” Rather said. “It is obvious that there is tremendous pressure to bend the knee to the Trump administration. The fear is that this appointment is part of that overall play.”

Weiss has worked in opinion journalism and has little background in broadcast journalism. She has described herself politically as a centrist and wrote a column for the New York Post in 2021 headlined, “10 ways to fight back against woke culture.”

Writing for the liberal website the Unpopulist, Matt Johnson said that “one reason for The Free Press' popularity is that it offers intellectual reassurances to legions of anti-anti-Trump readers — sophisticated conservatives who may be uneasy about Trumpism, yet want to believe that wokeness and other left-wing excesses are the primary threats to western civilization.”

Weiss told fellow CBS News employees that she stood for the same core journalistic values that have defined the profession from the beginning, including reporting on the world as it actually is and being fair, fearless and factual.

In separate staff memos, Ellison and Weiss outlined similar philosophies about a mainstream America being ill-served by a destructive form of partisanship.

“When we reduce every issue to ‘us vs. them’ or ‘my way vs. the wrong way,’ we close ourselves off from listening, learning and ultimately growing, both as individuals and as a society," Ellison wrote. "I don't pretend to have a solution to this challenge. But I do believe we each have a responsibility to do our part.”

Weiss will remain as the boss of The Free Press, which she indicated would continue on the same course but expand more quickly with Paramount’s money. Indeed, she said in a letter to subscribers that The Free Press will help reshape CBS News.

She said mainstream Americans — which she defined as being politically mixed and pragmatic — are being ill-served by an illiberalism from the fringes of society.

“On the one hand, an America-loathing far left,” she wrote. “On the other, a history-erasing far right. These extremes do not represent the majority of the country, but they have increasing power in our politics, our culture and our media ecosystem.”

In a Pew Research Center survey taken earlier this year, 56% of Americans who are Democrats or lean Democrats say they trust CBS News, while only 23% of Republicans say the same thing. Those levels are similar across all major broadcast media outlets, with Republicans primarily turning to Fox News Channel.

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social

FILE - The CBS logo is displayed on the exterior of CBS Scene Restaurant and Bar, at Gillette Stadium, in Foxborough, Mass., Feb. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The investigation into the Brown University mass shootingshifted Thursday when authorities said they were looking into a connection between the shooting and an attack two days later near Boston that killed a professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The attacker at Brown killed two students and wounded nine others on Saturday. Some 50 miles (80 kilometers) away MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro was killed Monday night in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline.

Here are some answers to questions about the attacks and investigations:

Authorities have not divulged much information yet. Three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the shift in investigation. Two of the people said investigators had identified a person of interest in the shootings and were actively seeking that individual.

The FBI previously said it knew of no links between the cases.

It’s been nearly a week since the shooting at Brown. There have been other high-profile attacks in which it took days or longer to make an arrest, including in the brazen New York City sidewalk killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO last year, which took five days.

Frustration is mounting in Providence that the person behind the Brown attack managed to get away and that a clear image of their face has yet to emerge.

Authorities have released several security videos of a person they think might have carried out the Brown attack. They show the individual standing, walking and even running along the streets, but their face is masked or turned away in all of them.

The state attorney general said the wing of the engineering building where the attack happened has few “if any” cameras, and investigators believe the shooter entered and left through a door that faces a residential street bordering campus. The building is on the edge of campus, which might explain why the cameras Brown does have didn’t capture footage of the person.

Loureiro, 47, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of MIT’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.

Authorities have not speculated on why he was killed and no suspect is in custody.

We still don't know. Although police said this week that they believe Brown was purposefully targeted and that the videos suggest the masked person had been casing the building, no one has taken credit for the attack and investigators apparently still hadn't identified a suspect as of Thursday.

The investigation was taking place as Brown was sending out early decision notifications.

Police say they still don't know. The finals study session was for a “Principles of Economics” course that attracts hundreds of students each semester, but police are still tracking down how many may have been in the room.

The two students who were killed and the nine others injured were studying for a final in a first-floor classroom in an older section of the engineering building when the shooter walked in and opened fire.

Those killed were 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov. Cook, whose funeral is Monday, was active in her Alabama church and served as vice president of the Brown College Republicans. Umurzokov’s family immigrated to the U.S. from Uzbekistan when he was a child, and he aspired to be a doctor.

As for the wounded, one remained hospitalized in critical condition and five were in stable condition as of Wednesday, officials said. The other three were discharged.

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Contributing were Associated Press reporters Kimberlee Kruesi, Amanda Swinhart, Robert F. Bukaty, Matt O'Brien and Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Michael Casey in Boston; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington.

This combo image made with photos provided by the FBI and the Providence, Rhode Island, Police Department shows a person of interest in the shooting that occurred at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (FBI/Providence Police Department via AP)

A memorial of flowers and signs lay outside the Barus and Holley engineering building at Brown University, on Hope Street in Providence, R.I., on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt OBrien)

A Brown University student leaves campus, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, after all classes, exams and papers were canceled for the rest of the Fall 2025 semester following the school shooting, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)