Bari Weiss’s CBS era begins with the loss of one of the network’s top journalists

Well, we all knew changes were coming.

When CBS News officially announced earlier this month that opinion journalist Bari Weiss was taking over as its editor-in-chief, you knew it was only a matter of time before we started seeing major changes.

And, boom, just like that, Monday was the start of those changes.

John Dickerson — one of the network’s most experienced and respected journalists, and a co-anchor of the “CBS Evening News” — announced he would leave the network at the end of the year.

Some reports say it was Dickerson’s decision, but it could be a case of him jumping before he was pushed. The New York Times' Michael M. Grynbaum wrote that Dickerson “was cognizant that significant changes, including a revamp of the ‘Evening News,’ were on the way at the news division.”

The Washington Post’s Scott Nover and Laura Wagner wrote that several CBS employees said Dickerson’s departure did not come as a surprise.

That’s because the “CBS Evening News” has consistently struggled in the ratings, running a distant third behind the ABC juggernaut of “World News Tonight” and the “NBC Nightly News.” For the week of Oct. 3, the “CBS Evening News” averaged 3.6 million viewers. Meanwhile, “World News Tonight” averaged 7.6 million, and “NBC Nightly News” averaged 5.6 million.

The “CBS Evening News” already trailed ABC and NBC in the ratings when longtime anchor Norah O’Donnell stepped away from the newscast at the start of this year. So CBS tried something different. The network brought in Dickerson to co-anchor with Maurice DuBois. But the reimagined newscast never gained traction and, in fact, saw a 10% dip in ratings.

Not that this was any fault of Dickerson’s.

Still, with the ratings in the tank, you could understand why the first item on Weiss’ agenda is to fix the “Evening News.”

But that doesn’t make the Dickerson news any less depressing to those at CBS News, who have already been holding their collective breath. They are waiting to see if the new owner, Paramount Skydance, follows through with rumored severe companywide layoffs, including deep cuts to CBS News. In addition, there is anxiety over the direction Weiss will take the news division.

The news that Dickerson is leaving surely is a gut punch to CBS News veterans. He has done practically everything there is to do at the network, from co-hosting “CBS This Morning” to being a correspondent on “60 Minutes” to moderating “Face the Nation” to co-anchoring the “Evening News” to being a go-to analyst on election night coverage. 

And he comes from journalism royalty. His mother, Nancy Dickerson, was hired by CBS News in 1954 and became the network’s first female correspondent in 1960.

CBS News president and executive editor Tom Cibrowski wrote in a statement, “John epitomizes the very best of journalism.”

Yet, one unnamed CBS News staffer told the Post, “Hard to see one of the network’s smartest fully leaving and not think it’s related to Bari.”

Another unnamed CBS News senior staffer told The Independent’s Justin Baragona, “He’s a huge, huge loss.” And another CBS News staffer told Baragona that it felt like the network “wanted him to fail.”

Dickerson really didn’t explain why he was leaving in his social media post, writing, “At the end of this year, I will leave CBS, sixteen years after I sat in as Face the Nation anchor for the first time. I am extremely grateful for all that CBS gave me — the work, the audience’s attention and the honor of being a part of the network’s history — and I am grateful for my dear colleagues who’ve made me a better journalist and a better human. I will miss you.”

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So, now what?

Cibrowski said Dickerson will continue co-anchoring the “Evening News” with DuBois “until the holidays.”

Then what?

It’s hard to imagine CBS News and Weiss would then go forward with just DuBois. Another major change is more likely.

There have been reports that Weiss might consider putting O’Donnell, who anchored from 2019 to 2025, back in the chair, or that “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil is a possibility. Oliver Darcy wrote in his Status newsletter that Weiss has interest in Fox News’ Bret Baier, but Darcy even added that Baier was only one name being considered and he was probably a long shot to leave Fox.

Look who else is talking

Speaking of Weiss and CBS and conservative types such as Baier, here’s another interesting nugget. Semafor’s Max Tani reports that Scott Jennings visited Weiss at CBS News headquarters last week.

Jennings worked inside the George W. Bush administration and can be seen these days trolling Democrats and defending Donald Trump and the right on CNN. Jennings is a regular contributor on the nighttime panel show “CNN Newsnight,” and it’s sometimes hard to know if he truly believes the arguments he makes, or if he is purposely needling the left for the sake of what he (and CNN) think is good TV.

Tani added, “It’s unlikely that Weiss will succeed in plucking Baier from his longtime perch atop Fox News’ evening broadcast. But inside CBS, the mood remains tense: Staffers are bracing for Paramount-wide cuts that are expected in the coming days and are still adjusting to Weiss’ leadership mandate, beyond the initial shock of her selection. One CBS staffer said despite some leaks of negative information, many employees have been much friendlier and open to her points of view in person. Another CBS insider noted that there have been some subtle shifts that seemed timed with her arrival, including an increasing frequency of people blaming ‘both sides’ while discussing stories during CBS’ morning editorial calls.”

MS NOW is coming soon

We now officially have a date for when MSNBC will become MS NOW. It will be Nov. 15. The cable news network is completely severing ties with NBC News. It’s part of the cable networks being spun off by Comcast. MS NOW stands for My Source, News, Opinion and World, and already viewers are seeing the promotion of a new tagline: “Same Mission, New Name.”

Indeed, MS NOW programming will look very familiar to viewers, with hosts continuing to include the likes of Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist, Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, Nicolle Wallace and Chris Hayes. NBC News correspondents will no longer appear on MS NOW, but the cable network has hired and will continue to hire journalists to replace those lost in the split.

Earlier this month, I wrote about MS NOW’s 10 core principles.

Brian Carovillano, MSNBC’s senior vice president of standards and editorial partnerships for news at Versant (the company spun off from NBC Universal), told me at the time, “There is plenty of research showing that core journalism values like fairness, transparency and accuracy are all critical to maintaining trust between news organizations and their audiences. MSNBC is fortunate to have an incredibly loyal and dedicated audience, and some of the most impressive engagement levels of any media organization. … We’re stating our commitment to these core values as we step into a new era for our organization, but in many ways it’s a restatement of the principles we’ve always followed.”

Pardon the dust

Still lots of buzz around President Donald Trump demolishing the East Wing of the White House to put up a lavish ballroom.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona, actually had a pretty funny line when asked about it on last Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” Moderator Kristen Welker asked Gallego if he agreed with former-GOP-representative-turned-Democrat Joe Walsh, who tweeted that any Democrat running for president in 2028 must pledge to tear down the new ballroom and restore the East Wing.

Gallego said, “No, I think to just mess with him, rename it ‘The Barack Obama Ballroom,’ and I think that’ll take care of half the problem.”

Gallego then got to his larger point, calling the White House controversy a “distraction,” and adding that Trump shouldn’t be concentrating on a new ballroom as much as he should be focusing on high inflation, a troubling economy and the struggles of everyday Americans.

Stewart staying?

If it were up to him, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart would continue doing his show. Despite all the changes going on at Paramount, the owner of Comedy Central, Stewart told The New Yorker‘s David Remnick that he’s “working on staying” as a once-a-week host of “The Daily Show.” The two spoke on stage Sunday at the 26th annual New Yorker Festival.

Stewart, however, did add, “Look, the other thing to remember is it's not as clear cut as all that. … They've already done things that I'm upset about. But then if I had integrity, maybe I would stand up and go, ‘I'm out.’ Or maybe the integrity thing to do would be to stay in it and keep fighting in the foxhole.”

But it does sound, overall, like he wants to stay.

LateNighter’s Bill Carter wrote last week, “People associated with the show say there is considerable uncertainty about what’s going to happen because, as one put it, ‘It all depends on what Jon decides.’ Of course it does. Stewart is more than the once-a-week host of the show — he’s an executive producer, and more than that, he’s the iconic face of what is now one of the great franchises in late-night history. And given the now hugely challenged and hyper-contentious state of late-night television — under an administration overtly rooting for the demise of hosts whose jokes the President doesn’t like — Stewart is also seen as a commanding officer in the unofficial resistance.”

For what it’s worth — and it’s worth a lot to Comedy Central and Paramount — “The Daily Show’s” ratings are up 25% from a year ago. Ratings in the all-important 18 to 49 demographic are the highest they’ve been in four years.

The sports equinox

Monday was another sports equinox. That means each of the four major professional sports leagues — the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball — had games on the same day that counted.

It used to be a rare event, but Monday was the 32nd time it has happened. And it has now happened every year since 2015. But unless there is some bizarre reason that one of the remaining World Series games gets postponed, Monday is the only time the sports equinox will occur this year. There will be an NFL game on Thursday, but the World Series, should it not be over, is not scheduled to be played that day. The next time the NFL plays after that is Sunday. If the World Series goes to a seventh game, it would be played on Saturday.

Part of the reason the equinox happens more frequently is that Major League Baseball extended its postseason to include more teams and games, pushing the World Series back later in the year.

As The Athletic’s Jordy Fee-Platt noted, “Until 2015, there had been only 14 occurrences of the sports equinox. Since that point, there has been at least one every year and sometimes multiple. This is a product of changing calendars for certain leagues.”

It’ll be interesting to see which event ultimately had the better ratings Monday night: Game 3 of the World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers or the “Monday Night Football” game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Commanders.

Media tidbits

• NPR’s David Folkenflik with “NPR lawsuit alleges Corporation for Public Broadcasting gave in to political pressure.”
• You have to read this piece. For Poynter, Kaleigh Rogers with “An Albany reporter’s steady questioning led a murder suspect to confess on camera.”
• For The Guardian, veteran media columnist Margaret Sullivan with “The tragic change a single year has made in America.” Sullivan writes about all that has happened under Donald Trump’s second administration and asks: “Can America ever recover? Can it reclaim its status in the world and its adherence to the rule of law? Or must we acknowledge that the 250-year-old experiment worked for a while, and then – suddenly, utterly – failed? My pessimistic brain tells me that the latter is true; that all may indeed be lost. My hopeful heart, however, tells me that we must try, in whatever ways we can. For me, as a media critic, that’s about urging journalists to live up, more fully, to their mission of holding power to account.”
• Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton with “Nine months later, that body of water down south is still the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to news outlets.”
• Erika Kirk, the widow of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, will give her first television interview since her husband was shot and killed on Sept. 10. She will sit down with Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Nov. 5 at 8 p.m. Eastern.
• Big news in the entertainment industry. Movie and TV producer Taylor Sheridan — whose universe includes megahits such as “Yellowstone” and “Tulsa King” — is leaving Paramount for NBCUniversal. As The Los Angeles Times’ Samantha Masunaga notes, “The move is a blow to Paramount, which has focused on wooing high-profile talent to the studio since its takeover by tech scion David Ellison and his Skydance Media.”
• For Columbia Journalism Review, Jem Bartholomew writes about Larry and David Ellison in “The CEOs of Everything.”
• Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel reports that a round of layoffs at Media Media includes approximately 10 cuts at The Players’ Tribune, the media outlet that tells the stories of athletes in their own voices. The Players’ Tribune was founded in 2014 by baseball star Derek Jeter. Minute Media acquired The Players’ Tribune in 2019. Jeter remained on Minute Media’s board of directors.
• The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand with “Prime Video’s NBA debut showed Amazon didn’t mess around with its broadcast.”

Hot type

• The New York Times’ Alexis Soloski with “Allison Williams, of ‘Regretting You,’ Knows She’s Not the Underdog.”
• New York’s Dominique Pariso with “I Tried Charmin’s 1,700-Sheet ‘Forever’ Roll of Toilet Paper.”

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