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"Newsroom culture clash" at CBS News

Here's more reporting on her staff meeting:

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Bari Weiss Unveils Sweeping Vision: “I Am Here to Make CBS News Fit for Purpose in the 21st Century”

Weiss rallied the troops and outlined her vision at an all-hands meeting Tuesday morning, naming a lineup of new contributors: "Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. If we stick to that strategy, we're toast."
www.hollywoodreporter.com www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.tvinsider.com

CBS News Boss Announces Big Shakeup & Warns Network Must Change

Bari Weiss shared her vision with staffers at a town hall meeting.
www.tvinsider.com www.tvinsider.com
 
TheBigA said:
Bari Weiss says CBS News is not producing a product that people want:

Instead of "all the news that's fit to print," her view is "give the people what they want. Very different view, thus the culture clash.

Reporters at the Washington Post got a similar lecture two years ago:

It all sounds similar to what we've been hearing in radio for the last ten years. When people have choices, they will take them.
Click to expand...
What that leads to reminds me of this Twilight Zone episode:

The Old Man in the Cave - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
TheBigA said:
Here's more reporting on her staff meeting:

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Bari Weiss Unveils Sweeping Vision: “I Am Here to Make CBS News Fit for Purpose in the 21st Century”

Weiss rallied the troops and outlined her vision at an all-hands meeting Tuesday morning, naming a lineup of new contributors: "Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. If we stick to that strategy, we're toast."
www.hollywoodreporter.com www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.tvinsider.com

CBS News Boss Announces Big Shakeup & Warns Network Must Change

Bari Weiss shared her vision with staffers at a town hall meeting.
www.tvinsider.com www.tvinsider.com
Click to expand...
Usually these "eye in the sky" changes that they envision don't seem to work. I remember TBS and TNT about a decade ago tried to dramatically change their product for relevance. TNT had a smaller change while TBS took on lots on new shows, almost none of which are even streaming today. I think these kinds of ideas are to temporarily appease shareholders, but wonder if just folding would be a good option and give the slot to affiliates?
 
tall_guy1 said:
I've watched Tony Dokoupil and he hasn't been as bad as people make him out to be. Last night, he challenged the administration's take on the weekend ICE shooting in Minneapolis, so its good they distance themselves in some regards (unlike Fox which is completely spinning that story in an inflammatory way.)
Click to expand...
Not condoning murder is a pretty low bar for a news anchor.
 
Mark Roberts said:
The worst type of corporate rot, one of those business books that substitutes clichés for actual insight. I had that inflicted on me a little more than 20 years ago. Then it was time to move on to the next fad.
Click to expand...
Years ago I worked under a department head who always raved about the Who Moved My Cheese? book and flogged us with its message of accepting forced change.

Then came the day when the station GM inserted another level of managerial hierarchy above the department head, as their new immediate superior.

The department head was shown the door a short time later.

Guess somebody let a cat into the mouse maze.

My personal reaction to the book was “What if you have a mouse that hates cheese?”
 
The last time CBS News was under fire was 1987. New president Laurence Tisch cut the budget. The news staff protested.

www.upi.com

Tisch defends CBS cuts - UPI Archives

CBS President Laurence Tisch Tuesday defended massive budget cuts and layoffs in the news division as necessary evils during times of unprecedented change at...
www.upi.com www.upi.com


We'll see if history repeats itself. The circumstances were different in 1987. TV had less competition.
 
From the Hollywood Reporter article posted by TheBigA:

"“We are going to put huge emphasis on scoops,” Weiss said. “Not scoops that expire minutes later. But investigative scoops. And, crucially, scoops of ideas. Scoops of explanation. This is where we can soar, and where we’ll be investing.”"

If this is Bari Weiss's idea of how a news division should be run, I expect the CBS news division to collapse in a hurry. Why? Because (and this has historically been shown time and time again), accuracy is far more importain in gaining the trust of viewers, both present and future, than "scoops", especially those "scoops" that turn out to be justifiably and absolutely wrong!
 
ted chittenden said:
From the Hollywood Reporter article posted by TheBigA:

"“We are going to put huge emphasis on scoops,” Weiss said. “Not scoops that expire minutes later. But investigative scoops. And, crucially, scoops of ideas. Scoops of explanation. This is where we can soar, and where we’ll be investing.”"

If this is Bari Weiss's idea of how a news division should be run, I expect the CBS news division to collapse in a hurry. Why? Because (and this has historically been shown time and time again), accuracy is far more importain in gaining the trust of viewers, both present and future, than "scoops", especially those "scoops" that turn out to be justifiably and absolutely wrong!
Click to expand...
It's circling the drain at this point. Fox News viewers hate CBS and mainstream journalism and want to see it fail, while anything MAGA is too psychotic for mainstream viewers.
 
TheBigA said:
Here's more reporting on her staff meeting:

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Bari Weiss Unveils Sweeping Vision: “I Am Here to Make CBS News Fit for Purpose in the 21st Century”

Weiss rallied the troops and outlined her vision at an all-hands meeting Tuesday morning, naming a lineup of new contributors: "Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. If we stick to that strategy, we're toast."
www.hollywoodreporter.com www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.tvinsider.com

CBS News Boss Announces Big Shakeup & Warns Network Must Change

Bari Weiss shared her vision with staffers at a town hall meeting.
www.tvinsider.com www.tvinsider.com
Click to expand...
My question is why are you so interested in this story when you don't even watch CBS Evening News?
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Years ago I worked under a department head who always raved about the Who Moved My Cheese? book and flogged us with its message of accepting forced change.

Then came the day when the station GM inserted another level of managerial hierarchy above the department head, as their new immediate superior.

The department head was shown the door a short time later.

Guess somebody let a cat into the mouse maze.

My personal reaction to the book was “What if you have a mouse that hates cheese?”
Click to expand...

Similar thing at iHeart, when I was there, except the book was "Radical Honesty", which by then was 20 years old:

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton: 9780440507543 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

At once shocking, entertaining, and profound--Radical Honesty is revolutionary book that takes a fresh look at how we live, love, and attempt to heal ourselves in modern society. Radical Honesty is not...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com www.penguinrandomhouse.com

This person (a regional President, if I recall) blew into town for a meeting with the cluster and actually handed out copies of the book. I read it and thought "boy, try any of these techniques with that guy or local management and you'll be on the street in a heartbeat."

Sure enough, everyone who did was gone fast . Thankfully, he was re-assigned before he lopped off too many heads.

Now that I think about it, that might have been his role---accelerating iHeart's reduction in force.
 
ted chittenden said:
From the Hollywood Reporter article posted by TheBigA:

"“We are going to put huge emphasis on scoops,” Weiss said. “Not scoops that expire minutes later. But investigative scoops. And, crucially, scoops of ideas. Scoops of explanation. This is where we can soar, and where we’ll be investing.”"

If this is Bari Weiss's idea of how a news division should be run, I expect the CBS news division to collapse in a hurry. Why? Because (and this has historically been shown time and time again), accuracy is far more importain in gaining the trust of viewers, both present and future, than "scoops", especially those "scoops" that turn out to be justifiably and absolutely false.
Click to expand...
I think she's trying to prove Trump's claim to be true, that the media really is "the enemy of the people."
 
ted chittenden said:
From the Hollywood Reporter article posted by TheBigA:

"“We are going to put huge emphasis on scoops,” Weiss said. “Not scoops that expire minutes later. But investigative scoops. And, crucially, scoops of ideas. Scoops of explanation. This is where we can soar, and where we’ll be investing.”"

If this is Bari Weiss's idea of how a news division should be run, I expect the CBS news division to collapse in a hurry. Why? Because (and this has historically been shown time and time again), accuracy is far more importain in gaining the trust of viewers, both present and future, than "scoops", especially those "scoops" that turn out to be justifiably and absolutely wrong!
Click to expand...

It does seem that Weiss is interested more in "goosing" the ratings in the short term rather than looking for some kind of legacy. An "investigative scoop" that stands the test of time isn't much use to folks who think in terms of daily, weekly, or quarterly results that can be laid out on a spreadsheet. Something like the Watergate expose', the Pentagon Papers, or the Boston Globe's story on church sexual abuse that was portrayed in the movie "Spotlight" aren't likely to be given resources from here on out. Investigations like that weren't premised on "we need eyeballs on this story now to make our advertisers happy and get an annual contract" but that appears to be where CBS is heading.
 


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