Overview

• Paramount Skydance bought The Free Press for about $150 million and installed its founder, Bari Weiss, as editor in chief of CBS News, leveraging a subscriber base reported at roughly 1.5 million with more than 170,000 paying members.
• Less than a week into the job, Weiss proposed and helped secure initial agreements for a roundtable with Hillary Clinton, Mike Pompeo, and Antony Blinken tied to the Israel–Hamas hostage and prisoner exchange coverage, according to Semafor.
• Norah O’Donnell is expected to host the interview, which Semafor reports could air in segments over several days, highlighting Weiss’s ability to quickly book high‑profile figures despite CBS not typically running such panels.
• Inside the network, producers are closely watching how she steers reporting on the Gaza war, with one internal call featuring a push to include voices from Gaza and no response from Weiss, Semafor reported.
• Weiss’s lack of television‑news experience and opinion‑journalism background has drawn scrutiny even as she vows to make the network the most trusted outlet, a shift unfolding after a contested Skydance–Paramount merger that drew regulatory conditions and political analysis.