After months of criticism from former CBS News staffers and other leftists over her push for even-handed journalism, new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss appears vindicated: CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil pulled in 6.4 million viewers on January 19, its biggest audience since 2021.
RATINGS: @CBSEveningNews with Tony Dokoupil delivers 6.4 million total viewers on Jan. 19 – its largest audience for the broadcast since 2021. The CBS News flagship evening broadcast also averaged 803K in the key adults 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel…
— CBS News PR (@CBSNewsPress) January 22, 2026
The first flashpoint came when Weiss spiked an investigative segment by Sharyn Alfonsi titled “Inside CECOT,” which focused on a notorious prison in El Salvador. Weiss said the segment lacked sufficient context and did not include a response from the Trump administration. The backlash later escalated when roughly 200 former CBS staffers and industry figures signed an open letter to Paramount CEO David Ellison, expressing “deep reservations” about Weiss’s leadership and urging him to protect the network’s “crown jewel” from what they called her “clumsy editorial interference.”
Weiss later drew criticism after reportedly sending a memo to staff asking for a detailed account of their weekly working hours, signaling a shift toward stricter newsroom expectations.
When she was hired, former CBS News anchor Dan Rather stated, “It is also hard to believe Weiss will be an equitable steward of the storied news division …”
The usual suspects have declared war on Weiss for refusing to continue CBS News’s slavish devotion to leftist perspectives. Even David Letterman called the media outlet a “wreck,” saying its integrity had been “eviscerated by these idiots that have taken it over.”
The Guardian reported earlier this month, “ … her three months as editor in chief have been more chaotic than even many of her critics expected. ‘There is blood in the water,’ said one CBS News journalist.”
The New York Times chimed in, “Her reimagining of CBS News has faced heavy scrutiny, and even became a punchline on her own network: At Sunday’s Golden Globes, broadcast by CBS, the host, Nikki Glaser, earned one of her biggest laughs when she declared that CBS News was ‘America’s newest place to see BS news.’”
