Five reasons why the CBS ombudsman is a blatant sham
Plus: JD Vance thinks Watergate-style corruption is A-OK. He's disgustingly wrong.
Soon after CBS News got a new (Trumpy) owner and new (right-leaning) editorial management last year, the company appointed someone to supposedly keep an eye on editorial bias and ensure impartiality.
Kenneth Weinstein would be “an independent, internal advocate for journalistic integrity and transparency.”
Yeah, right.
From the get-go, there was no reason to think this would be a real thing — a person whose first responsibility was to the CBS audience and whose first interest was fairness in the public interest. Indeed, the appointment only happened as part of a commitment to the Trump administration by the network’s parent company, Skydance, as it tried to get its huge merger with Paramount approved; despite the lofty words, this was never really about serving the public.
That soon became obvious.
First off, Weinstein had no background in supervising news coverage. He was a denizen of the right-leaning think tank, the Hudson Institute, a vocal champion of Israel, a critic of the Biden administration and a big donor to Republican and pro-Trump political groups. I’m not sure how this amounts to independence.
Since his appointment last September, he’s been notably unresponsive to public complaints and concerns about CBS News, where one controversy has followed another for months. Most recently, star 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley was fired after he charged his bosses with murdering the legendary news network.
How has Weinstein responded to the tumult?
Certainly not by communicating with the public. Despite the lip service to “transparency,” his role was never meant to face outwards, as is the norm with news ombudsmen; rather, if he saw a problem, he’d report it first to his corporate bosses. That was made explicit in a letter Skydance filed with the FCC.
As a result of all this, he’s been notably silent, even as CBS News has been the scene of a hurricane.
“CBS News’ Independent Watchdog Stays Quiet Amid ‘60 Minutes’ Turmoil,” was the New York Times headline about what Weinstein has been up to.
The story reported that in the nine months since he was hired, Weinstein “has issued no public statements about CBS News’s coverage or its controversies. He has not issued any guidance or feedback in staffwide emails or memos.” And he has told CBS employees that he is scheduled to work only one day a month.
It’s absurd.
I know something about this because I was the fifth “public editor” at the New York Times, a role dedicated to making sure the news organization was fair and was serving the public interest. The way the Times’s position was structured created actual, not fake, transparency.
During my nearly four-year tenure, I officially reported to publisher Arthur Sulzberger, but I always felt that I really worked for the readership of the Times and to some extent for the public at large.
Typically, I wrote blog posts several times a week. These appeared online within the Times website, often promoted on the home page, so readers would know they were there. I also wrote a more formal column that appeared in print every other week, as well as online, again on the Times’s own site.
My office fielded hundreds of emails and calls a week and my columns and posts generated a slew of comments and social media attention. I also spoke publicly about my role when I got the chance. (Sadly, the Times abolished the public editor role in 2017, the year after my term was up.) And my assistant and I replied by email or phone to many readers even when I didn’t write about their concerns.
In short, it was a full-time job — and then some.
With that background in mind, I can say with confidence that the CBS appointment has proved to be a sham.
A real CBS News ombudsman would have been mighty busy.
If I were the CBS News appointee, here are five concerns I surely would have taken up:
The delay, ordered at the 11th hour, by top editor Bari Weiss in Sharyn Alfonsi’s report about a brutal prison in El Salvador where Venezuelan immigrants charged with crimes had been sent by the Trump administration. Alfonsi called it a political move, one apparently meant to avoid offending the Trump administration at a time when CBS’s parent company was trying to effect a big merger that needed federal approval. Alfonsi has since been fired. The merger went forward.
The vast exodus of top talent at CBS News, from Anderson Cooper to Tanya Simon, the executive producer of 60 Minutes. Why are all these well-respected people getting fired, failing to have their contracts renewed or walking out the door of their own volition? Doesn’t the public deserve a full explanation?
The tanking ratings at the CBS Evening News, where Weiss installed a new anchor Tony Dokoupil, brought onto the anchor desk to much fanfare about how he would change things by having his show speak to all of America. The public doesn’t seem to be buying it. How has the coverage changed at what once was the home of Walter Cronkite? To what extent is CBS News reporting aggressively on the Trump administration, its screwups and its corruption?
And what about CBS Mornings, which has usually led the network pack, but had a horrible May? Then, after Pelley’s firing, according to TV Insider, the show suffered a whopping 28 percent drop in “the demo” — the coveted 25 to 54 year old group most appealing to advertisers. The CBS News audience is voting with its eyeballs and remote controls. Isn’t that a concern, not only from a business perspective but from a journalistic-mission perspective?
On the CBS ombud website, some outside comments are available for public viewing, including complaints about the news network’s coverage of the Middle East and particularly what’s happened in Gaza. We know that Weiss is an avowed and proud Zionist, so to what extent is her ideology driving the news department’s coverage? Isn’t that an issue of editorial independence? Does she recuse herself from that coverage, given her stance? What has she said, internally, about it?
I could go on, but you get the picture. So does the public, if comments on the Times article are any indication.
“Mr. Weinstein is doing what he was hired to do, nothing!” wrote one. And another put it this way, “Weinstein is a puppet and everyone knows it.”
It’s (yet another) embarrassment to CBS News.
Readers, how has what’s happened at CBS News changed your news habits? Do you still watch 60 Minutes? What about other CBS News programs? If your habits have changed, what have you substituted? Have you ever tried to complain to the CBS brass about what’s happened there? Did you get any response?
Separately, I was disgusted by J.D. Vance’s televised comments about how Richard Nixon’s reputation seemed to be having a comeback, and how the Watergate scandal would have been no big deal today. It would have been a one-day story, he suggested, and he added that it’s laughable that it brought down a president.
Of course, this was quite a self-own for the opportunistic vice president in this corrupt and ever-grifting administration. Watergate was a monumental scandal, for good reason.
As former Obama strategist David Alexrod, now chief political analyst at CNN, recalled on X:
“Just to review, Nixon’s aides authorized a break-in of the DNC headquarters to install bugging equipment…They then enlisted the CIA to mislead the FBI …the entire operation was paid for a slush fund controlled by the White House …The White House also enlisted the IRS to probe hundreds of Nixon’s political enemies…The Attorney General and White House Chief of Staff and several other top aides all were convicted and served time …Nixon was caught on his own secret tape system conspiring with them…”
As Axelrod put it, the fact that Vance thinks this would be a minor story today “speaks volumes about the moral and ethical degradation of the Trump era.”
Some of the punchiest commentary came on Substack from historian Garrett Graff, whose 2022 book, “Watergate: A New History,” is the definitive retrospective of this sordid chapter. Here’s his recent post.
And just for context, check out this new Times story on Trump, his family and their latest self-deal. We should all be shocked, but I’m afraid too may may have lost the ability.
I hope justice is served someday, as it largely was in Watergate, with the exception of Nixon’s pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford.
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My background: I am a Lackawanna, NY native who started my career as a summer intern at the Buffalo News, my hometown daily. After years as a reporter and editor, I was named the paper’s first woman editor in chief in 1999, and ran the 200-person newsroom for almost 13 years. Starting in 2012, I served as the first woman “public editor” of the New York Times — an internal media critic and reader representative — and later was the media columnist for the Washington Post. These days, I write here on Substack, as well as for the Guardian US. I’ve also written two books, taught journalism ethics, and won a few awards, including three for defending First Amendment principles.
The purpose of ‘American Crisis’: My aim is to use this newsletter (it started as a podcast in 2023) to push for the kind of journalism we need for our democracy to function — journalism that is accurate, fair, mission-driven and public-spirited. That means that I point out the media’s flaws and failures when necessary.
What I ask of you: Shortly after Trump’s election in November of 2024, I removed the paywall so that everyone could read and comment. I thought it was important in this dire moment and might be helpful. If you are able to subscribe at $50 a year or $8 a month, or upgrade your unpaid subscription, that will help to support this venture — and keep it going for all. Thank you!
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I don’t watch a lot of network TV but I always watched CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Since CBS pulled Alfonsi’s story, I only watched Colbert. Now I don’t watch CBS at all. I now watch John Oliver’s show, and The Daily Show.
I stopped watching television news shows years and years ago because the talking heads format is shallow, limited and controlling by definition. Especially now with Substack so robust, there's plenty to read and fuller stories. TV news is kind of like white zinfandel, you know, wine for people who don't really like wine? If you're really interested in getting grip on things, you don't turn to CBS or any other network. You read.