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bari weiss
Will Bari Weiss Condemn Israel's Killing of CBS Contributor in Gaza?
Abdul Raouf Shaat is among the more than 200 media workers killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023.
Jan 22, 2026
A cameraman and CBS News contributor was among three journalists killed Wednesday by Israeli forces while working in Gaza, prompting some observers to ask when—or if—Bari Weiss, the network's pro-Israel editor-in-chief, would condemn the attack.
Anas Ghneim, Mohammed Salah Qashta, and Abdul Raouf Shaat were using a drone to record aid distribution by the Egyptian Relief Committee in al-Zahra in central Gaza when, according to eyewitness accounts, an airstrike targeted one of the group's vehicles accompanying the journalists.
"The Israeli army criminally targeted this vehicle," Egyptian Relief Committee spokesperson Mohammed Mansour told AFP.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed its troops "identified several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, in a manner that posed a threat to their safety," and then "struck the suspects who activated the drone."
Israeli officials often claim—almost always without conclusive evidence—that journalists, aid workers, and other civilians it kills are Hamas "terrorists."
CBS News said that Shaat, a 30-year-old newlywed, "worked for years as a cameraman for CBS News and other outlets."
Among those outlets were Agence France-Presse, which issued a statement condemning the attack and remembering Shaat as a "kind-hearted colleague, with a gentle sense of humor, and as a deeply committed journalist."
"AFP demands a full and transparent investigation into his death," the agency said. "Far too many local journalists have been killed in Gaza over the past two years while foreign journalists remain unable to enter the territory freely."
Shaat's CBS News colleagues in London remembered him as a "brave journalist" who was "deeply loved by everyone who knew or worked with him."
However, one prominent CBS figure has so far been conspicuously silent on Shaat's killing. As of Thursday afternoon, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has said nothing publicly about the incident. Weiss is a self-described Zionist whose outlet Free Press—now a division of CBS following its acquisition by Paramount Skydance—is staunchly pro-Israel and has shown indifference toward Palestinian suffering.
For example, FP called the officially declared Gaza famine, which claimed at least hundreds of lives, a "myth" and published other reporting on Gaza that critics said fueled genocide denial.
Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, are also both reportedly close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Standing in stark contrast with Weiss and CBS News, media advocacy groups were quick to denounce the journalists' killings. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate blasted what it called a "deliberate assassination" and "a war crime and a crime against humanity under international humanitarian law."
Condemnation also came from groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
“CPJ condemns Israel’s strike on a clearly marked civilian vehicle in central Gaza that killed freelance photojournalists... amid an ongoing ceasefire,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in a statement. “Israel, which possesses advanced technology capable of identifying its targets, has an obligation under international law to protect journalists.”
CPJ calls for a transparent investigation after an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle killed three journalists in central Gaza during the ongoing ceasefire:⚪️Abed Shaat⚪️Mohammad Qeshta⚪️Anas GhnaimRead more ⤵️cpj.org/2026/01/isra...
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— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom.bsky.social) January 21, 2026 at 10:45 AM
While it is difficult to know precisely how many journalists have been killed in Gaza—where Israel bans foreign reporters from entering—CPJ says at least 208 Palestinian media workers have been killed there. RSF says the number is at least 220. The United Nations puts the figure at over 260.
The deadliest Israeli massacre of media professionals in Gaza occurred last August 10, when six journalists were killed in a tent bombing outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Later that month, an Israeli "double-tap" strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed at least 21 people, including five journalists.
According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have committed more than 1,200 violations of the ceasefire with Hamas since it took effect last October, killing over 460 Palestinians including upward of 100 children. Officials said at least 11 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza late Wednesday and into Thursday, including the three journalists, three children, and a woman.
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel's US-backed genocidal war on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Israel also continues to restrict the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, causing preventable deaths. For example, at least 10 children and infants have died of cold-related causes this winter, according to local officials.
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Bari Weiss at CBS Is Manufacturing Consent for Trump's Structural Viciousness
Weiss has internalized the belief that her job is to reinforce the corporate rather than the contrarian brand of "60 Minutes" and avoid coverage of geopolitical issues that might make her job more difficult.
Dec 31, 2025
According to the concept of “manufactured consent,” elaborated by Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman in the 1980s, the media carries out a propaganda function in support of the dominant political system. In the United States, this consent has favored particular governments beyond the US government itself—for instance, Israel in its conflict with Palestinians. A recent example has been CBS, owned by David Ellison’s Paramount and under Bari Weiss’ editorial leadership, which has systematically suppressed Palestinian voices in favor of Israel and President Donald Trump.
In another example of manufactured consent, Weiss’ CBS rejected a "60 Minutes" story that made the Trump administration look bad on El Salvador. Incidentally, since the end of last summer, the US State Department has dropped criticism of both Israel and El Salvador in its human rights reporting, merging the interests of CBS with the politics of the current administration. When journalist Sharyn Alfonsi wrote the segment about the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador and what life there is like, the content was pulled at the last minute because Weiss said it needed more reporting and balance, even when journalists at CBS invited all sides for a comment. They insisted that the decision was political and not editorial.
Jeffrey St. Clair for CounterPunch recently stated that “CBS under [Bari] Weiss may be worse than Fox News, because nobody takes Fox seriously as a news source and many do CBS, though not for much longer, one suspects.” Andy Borowitz pointed out that, “When Bari Weiss and CBS decided to censor the report on El Salvador’s brutal prison, they didn’t realize that bootlegged copies would surface.” Indeed, according to Variety, the “report yanked by Weiss about the horrific treatment of detainees deported from the US to a prison in El Salvador has leaked online after appearing on a Canadian-TV app.”
Sharyn Alfonsi did not hold back in her criticism of CBS:
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one. We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a veto. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.
Alfonsi further explained:
If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient. If the standard for airing a story becomes “the government must agree to be interviewed,” then the government effectively gains control over the "60 Minutes" broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.
Back in 2020, Weiss, in her resignation letter to the New York Times, stated that “self-censorship” and “fitting a predetermined narrative” to satisfy “a narrow audience rather than allowing a curious public read,” led her to quit.
Just before that in 2018, she authored in the Times, “We’re All Fascists Now,” a right-wing lament that basically talks of a center-left discourse threatening free speech by its mere interrogation of the hard right. In essence, Weiss complains of the left trivializing fascism only to cover up the fact that she accepts hard power and state authority and structural violence as forms of conventional wisdom beyond criticism. Cultural norms are not really “left leaning,” but it is certainly useful for her to present them this way. Weiss is in the business of providing security to dominant groups in advancing and advocating the consensus required by the state-corporate news nexus.
Weiss might discount how popular fascism was and is in the context of US history in the first place. When you factor in the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan, which peaked at 6 million-plus members in the early 20th century, American admiration for Mussolini, and the regional popularity of the German Bund, the United States has a horrific past with extreme right affiliation. Just over 1 in 3 Americans listened in the 1930s to Charles Coughlin, an outspoken supporter of Nazism.
But you don’t even need to go far back in history to see the US role in El Salvador’s deterioration or Trump’s subversion of US asylum law, all to promote fascism and militarism. Currently, the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelans in violation of international humanitarian law is well known as an emerging crime against humanity. A federal judge has just issued a ruling that requires the United States to grant due process to deported Venezuelans. Additionally, the entire matter has the potential to be examined by the International Criminal Court.
CBS certainly knows that CECOT is a large, high-security prison in El Salvador that has been cited by Human Rights Watch, the UN General Assembly, and the Yale Global Health Review for its harsh conditions and human-rights related concerns. HRW’s report in November 2025 was entitled “You Have Arrived in Hell,” a concept reiterated by Spiegel International. Amnesty International and Relief Web covered the expulsions, which entail people deported from the United States and sent to CECOT. It is illegal under international humanitarian law to send refugees to known places of human rights abuse.
Weiss seems to believe that the flagrant nature of Trump’s actions requires the press to yield and to ignore facts that “seem radical.” Additionally, Weiss encourages apolitical journalists to engage in self-censorship and to dismiss the buried segment as a “workplace dispute.” All the while, "60 Minutes" remains entirely mainstream and conventional. As reporter Dave Zirin points out, “'60 Minutes' was never perfect, it’s been a mouthpiece for war and empire many times over the decades.” He aptly explains how Weiss canceled “the brave testimonials of Venezuelans, tortured in Trump’s El Salvadoran slave labor prison.”
To Zirin’s point, Weiss, a loyal commissar to corporate statism, has internalized the belief that her job is to reinforce the corporate rather than the contrarian brand of "60 Minutes" and avoid coverage of geopolitical issues that might make her job more difficult. When she undermines actual reporting and denies the labor, dignity, and courage found in solid reporting, she is trafficking in the politics of organized forgetting and silence.
What Weiss does worst of all, of course, is to provide cover for Trumpian structural viciousness, what policy analyst Khury Petersen-Smith has called the “era for spectacular violence.” This all comes as International relations expert Stephen Zunes recently pointed out how “the United States is now ranked 57th in political freedom,” behind dozens of nations and territories according to Freedom House. Weiss is only helping to contribute to the trend, and this backlash is likely to continue.
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‘Fire Them!’ Stephen Miller Throws a Fit Over 'Revolt' of ‘60 Minutes’ Producers Against Bari Weiss
Miller's demand comes as one CBS News insider described the mood at the network as "dismal," "confused,” “demoralized,” and "super fucked."
Dec 24, 2025
Top White House adviser Stephen Miller on Tuesday threw an angry fit at CBS News' "60 Minutes" for its leaked segment about the Trump administration sending immigrants to an El Salvadoran torture prison.
During an interview on Fox News, Miller accused "60 Minutes" of coddling people he described as violent criminals, even though records obtained by the program showed that only a fraction of the men the administration sent to El Salvador's notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) were convicted of violent offenses, and nearly half had no criminal histories.
"They know that these are monsters, who got exactly what they deserved," said Miller, referring to Venezuelan men who said they were subjected to relentless torture and abuse during their imprisonment at CECOT. "Because under President Trump, we are not going to let little girls get raped, and murdered anymore."
Miller then encouraged CBS News boss Bari Weiss to purge producers and reporters who leaked details about her decision to spike their CECOT story to other media outlets.
"Every one of those producers at ’60 Minutes’ engaged in this revolt, fire them," Miller said. "Clean house, fire them!"
Miller: Every one of those producers at 60 minutes who engaged in this revolt, clean house and fire them, that's what I say. pic.twitter.com/YGXm30o2nR
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 24, 2025
Weiss' decision to pull the CECOT segment has reportedly sent morale at CBS News spiraling downward, with one insider telling Vanity Fair that the mood at the network now is "dismal," "confused,” “demoralized,” and "super fucked" over the move.
Compounding the frustration, the insider said, is the fact that the segment has already been leaked. and has been viewed widely online, including on a Canadian streaming app, rather than on CBS.
"I mean, it’s already out there, so now we just look like idiots," they said.
The spiking of the CECOT story was further criticized by former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan, who wrote a Tuesday column in the Guardian slamming Weiss for "her apparent willingness to use her position to protect the powerful and take care of business for the oligarchy."
Sullivan noted that Weiss reports directly to Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the son of Trump ally Larry Ellison, who recently made a hostile bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD) after Netflix announced that its own $72 billion offer to buy up the media company had been accepted.
This is relevant, Sullivan said, because Ellison will need assistance from Trump-appointed federal regulators for his bid to succeed.
"The Ellisons surely wouldn't want to antagonize anyone at this critical moment," Sullivan explained. "And notably, if Paramount prevails, they would control [WBD-owned] CNN, and could do there what they’re doing at CBS News—they could install new editorial leadership that’s more agreeable. Trump has complained bitterly for years about CNN; this matters to him."
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