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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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'Merry Christmas!' Declares Trump Moments After Threat to Destroy Broadcasters Who Air Criticism of Him
Trump's latest threat came shortly after he once against lashed out at late-night host Stephen Colbert.
Dec 24, 2025
President Donald Trump sent out a cheery Christmas greeting early Wednesday morning just three minutes after threatening to shut down US broadcasters if their programs did not provide him with more positive coverage.
In a Truth Social post sent out at 12:36 am, Trump renewed his threat to once again strip broadcast licenses from networks that cover or portray him and his administration in a negative light.
"If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated?" Trump wrote. "I say, YES!"
Just three minutes afterward, at 12:39 am, Trump posted an all-caps message that read, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!"
It is unclear what sparked Trump's latest threat, although shortly before it was posted he lashed out at comedian Stephen Colbert, whose time hosting CBS' "The Late Show" is set to end in May 2026.
"Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success," he wrote. "Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his nonexistent ratings. Stephen is running on hatred and fumes. A dead man walking! CBS should, 'put him to sleep,' NOW, it is the humanitarian thing to do!"
While Trump frequently delivered angry rants about media coverage throughout his first term, his words appear to be carrying significantly more weight during his second term.
For example, the announcement of Colbert's cancellation raised eyebrows earlier this year because it came shortly before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) signed off on an $8 billion deal for CBS parent company Paramount to be bought by Skydance Media, the company founded by David Ellison, son of Trump ally Larry Ellison.
Weeks after this, Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to rescind broadcast licenses for Disney-owned ABC unless it took late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, a frequent Trump critic, off the air. Hours after Carr's threat, Kimmel's show was suspended before being put back on the air days later amid a public outcry.
Over the weekend, CBS News boss Bari Weiss spiked a segment on the network's flagship news program "60 Minutes" that cast a critical eye on the Trump administration for sending hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious El Salvadoran prison where they were allegedly subjected to abuse and torture.
Weiss' decision to at least temporarily quash the story came as Larry Ellison is making a hostile bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery that will once again need FCC approval in the future in order to succeed.
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'Threat to Media and Democracy': Trump Ally Larry Ellison Puts Up $40 Billion to Help Son Buy CNN Owner
"Yesterday we saw the Ellison-owned CBS kill an important news story for being too critical of Trump," wrote one journalist. "Now Ellison is making another move to try to win control of CNN."
Dec 22, 2025
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, an ally of US President Donald Trump and one of the richest men in the world, pledged on Monday to provide $40.4 billion to help finance his son's hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of CNN, HBO Max, and other major media assets.
The billionaire's personal financing guarantee was announced in a press release issued by Paramount Skydance, a company headed by David Ellison, Larry Ellison's son.
"Paramount has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to acquiring WBD," David Ellison said in a statement. "Our $30 per share, fully financed all-cash offer was on December 4th, and continues to be, the superior option to maximize value for WBD shareholders."
Paramount launched its $108 billion effort to take over Warner Bros. earlier this month, days after Netflix and Warner Bros. leadership announced a proposed merger deal. Antitrust advocates have warned that either merger would be destructive for journalism, television writers, media industry competition, and consumers.
Paramount added Larry Ellison's personal funding pledge to its offer after Warner Bros. board members raised concerns about the initial proposal, pointing specifically to the absence of a concrete guarantee of the billionaire executive's backing. Larry Ellison's net worth is estimated to be around $243 billion.
"The ability to deal directly with Larry if there was an issue to close would be critical," Warner Bros. board chair Samuel Di Piazza Jr. told CNBC last week. "Otherwise closing might not happen."
News of Larry Ellison's direct intervention in Paramount's bid for Warner Bros. came amid mounting concerns over media consolidation into the hands of a few right-wing billionaires and the Trump administration's growing political influence at the nation's news networks.
Last week, TikTok’s Chinese owner signed a deal giving Larry Ellison's company and other investors an 80% stake in a newly formed US TikTok entity.
On Sunday, chaos and outrage erupted at CBS News after editor-in-chief Bari Weiss spiked a "60 Minutes" segment on El Salvador's CECOT prison shortly before it was set to air. Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent who led the segment, accused Weiss of making a "political" decision to prevent the airing of a report that would have reflected badly on the Trump administration. Paramount Skydance is the owner of CBS News.
"It's hard to ignore that this happened just as Paramount's hostile bid for Warner Bros. was slipping away," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote late Sunday. "Time to please the king again."
Journalist and media critic Jennifer Schulze warned Monday that "Larry Ellison is a threat to journalism and democracy."
"Yesterday we saw the Ellison-owned CBS kill an important news story for being too critical of Trump," Schulze wrote. "Now Ellison is making another move to try to win control of CNN."
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