Explainer: Who is Bari Weiss, the CBS News chief who killed CECOT prison story?

You may be hearing or reading the name Bari Weiss, in relation to a story on the infamous El Salvador prison that was supposed to run last night on “60 Minutes,” but didn’t, because Weiss, somehow the new president of CBS News, killed it, almost certainly to protect the Trump administration from backlash.

If you’re like me, you’re wondering who this Bari Weiss person is.

Here we go, with an explainer.

Rich kid turned self-styled martyr

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Weiss grew up in privilege, as the daughter of the owners of a Pittsburgh-based flooring company.

She went to private school and did a gap year in Israel – hardscrabble, this one – before going to college at Columbia University, where she made a name for herself as a freshman, criticizing a Middle Eastern studies professor because she thought he spent too much time in his class on Middle Eastern politics focused on Israel and Zionism.

I mean, I get it: it’s not like Israel vs. everybody else in the Middle East is a defining feature of Middle Eastern politics or anything.

Weiss wrote about the experience later as having given her “a front row seat to leftist anti-Semitism,” because of course she did.

You’re already not surprised that this person would spike a story on an El Salvador prison to curry favor with Team Trump.

The only question you have is: how is it that she let a “60 Minutes” reporting team waste its time on that kind of reporting in the first place?

Seriously, how about a travel piece on the night-life scene in Saudi Arabia?

Or maybe a quickie on the plans for the new resort strip in Gaza.

Weiss’ career in journalism has exclusively been on the editorial side, with stints at newspapers in Israel and at The Wall Street Journal before she landed a sweet gig at The New York Times in 2017.

That one ended, rather predictably, with her resignation in 2020, after she alleged that she was being bullied by colleagues; in 2021, she compared herself to Galileo, who, you may remember from world history in the ninth grade, was threatened with being burnt at the stake if he did not renounce his scientific views.

Also in 2021, Weiss launched a Substack that she eventually called The Free Press, which was more not even disguised right-wing commentary.

Her time as the editor of this Free Press was the basis for her to be named the CBS News chief earlier this year when Skydance, owned by the failson of a pro-Trump billionaire, came into possession of CBS, and its news division.

In sum: they put a rich kid with a lifetime of making herself into being a victim who wrote commentary and opinion pieces for 15 years and had a Substack in charge of CBS News.

They being people who decry DEI for putting people who aren’t qualified ahead of those who are.

The controversy over CECOT

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CBS advertised for last night’s “60 Minutes” a piece reported by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi on the infamous CECOT mega-prison, which the Trump administration is using to dump hundreds of immigrants detained by ICE in its sweeping raids.

Then on Saturday, we learned that the piece was being pulled – and Weiss is now owning up to being the person who made that call, after raising concerns about the absence of an on-camera response from the Trump administration.

Problem there being: CBS News sought comment from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, and multiple requests were met with silence.

“Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story,” Alfonsi wrote in an internal memo to CBS News staffers that has surfaced online. “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.”

Weiss addressed the criticism in a conference call with staffers on Monday that has been leaked far and wide.

“I held a ‘60 Minutes’ story because it was not ready,” Weiss said, adding that the reporting “did not advance the ball – the Times and other outlets have previously done similar work.”

Odd, isn’t it, that she’d use the New York Times as a justification for CBS News not needing to get into the weeds on a story.

“The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment at this prison,” Weiss said. “To run a story on this subject two months later, we need to do more. And this is ‘60 Minutes.’ We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera.”

This, from a “news” person whose stock and trade is commentary; she’s never had to get a person on camera or on the record for anything, since all she’s done is blather.

If she’d ever had to get somebody on the record, she’d know that, and this is genius, sometimes – a lot of times! – people who are subjects of uncomfortable reporting don’t want to go on the record, or go on camera.

“Our viewers come first. Not the listing schedule or anything else. That’s my north star, and I hope it’s yours, too,” Weiss told staffers this morning.