CBS is unraveling -- and it goes beyond Bari Weiss

[marmar]

( Salon). In the span of months, one of America’s most storied broadcast institutions has managed to alienate its most recognizable late-night host and lose one of its most respected journalists, all while inviting scrutiny over whether it is voluntarily bending the knee to political pressure from the Trump administration. The optics are catastrophic.

CBS looks to have made a strategic blunder when it announced plans last year to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” but decided to keep host Stephen Colbert on air until May 2026. The decision created a lame-duck host with a nightly platform and a growing sense of grievance. On Monday, Colbert told his studio audience that CBS lawyers had called his show “in no uncertain terms” to block an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. According to Colbert, the network didn’t just want to censor the content — it wanted to censor the censorship itself, informing him that he couldn’t even mention that he’d been prohibited from airing it.

“Because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this,” he told his audience, “let’s talk about this.” He ultimately posted the interview to YouTube, where it has since drawn more than 5.2 million views — far more than it ever would have attracted as a routine late-night segment. (CBS said it had “not prohibited” Talarico’s interview from running but admitted it had “provided legal guidance” and given Colbert’s team “options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.”)

It’s amazing how long we’ve known about the Streisand effect, the phenomenon where an attempt to censor or suppress information ends up drawing more attention to it, yet institutions still can’t resist stepping on the rake. CBS handed the shovel to the very man they were trying to bury, and he dug himself out. Colbert knows he has nothing to lose now. It’s worth noting that his public criticism of CBS parent company Paramount Skydance’s $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris — a lawsuit that legal scholars widely regarded as meritless — is widely believed to be the real reason CBS canceled “The Late Show.” ...........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/02/18/cbs-is-unraveling-and-it-goes-beyond-bari-weiss/

[WSHazel]

1. Who would have thought

Who would have thought that putting a Nepo baby in charge of a major entertainment enterprise would turn into a train wreck? Even Fox had enough sense to keep the news and entertainment businesses separate. Paramount is going to have a really hard time getting anyone to bring their shows to that network. They will likely have to overpay compered to other networks.

[PCIntern]

3. Fox has the perpetual motion machine thusly:

The entertainment division undermines traditional values: Family Guy, Simpsons , Married with children, the X-Files

The news division then rails against undermining American culture and values

The entertainment division then parodies the news division and makes fools of them.

And on and on.

[UTUSN]

6. Best step by step description ever!

[yardwork]

12. And so Fox makes money from every demographic.

Clever business model. Evil, but clever.

[PCIntern]

18. Ex-actly

[NJCher]

28. urm, you forgot something

Clever business model. Evil, but clever.

When you have to pay out $787.5 million in fines, it wipes out a good deal of profit.

Not so clever.

[progressoid]

34. Right. All the while ca$hing in on it.

[mdbl]

36. And CBS will never be the Fux Nooze they aspire to

They will just go down the drain. If Paramount Skydance had any brains, it would divest itself of CBS before it becomes a dead relic.

[spooky3]

24. It's all entertainment. That's how Fox has articulated a defense

In lawsuits.

[Upthevibe]

39. WSHazel........

How is she was a Nepo baby?

"Weiss was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Lou and Amy Weiss, former owners of Weisshouse, a Pittsburgh company founded in 1943 that sells flooring, furniture, and kitchens; they own flooring company Weisslines."

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Legal departments

are like a corporate form of CIA.

[Picaro]

9. CYA?

[bucolic_frolic]

16. Yes, that must be what I meant.

Thanks.

[LR3]

4. Every story about CBS seems to miss the point

The point being, these are not "strategic blunders" or "stepping on rakes"...it's carrying out WHAT BARI WEISS WAS HIRED TO DO, i.e., destroy CBS as a credible news source.

The Ellison's don't give a shit about CBS news; rather, they are simply using its destruction as a tool to curry Trump's favor and get rulings that benefit them, i.e., Warner Brothers and other future moves they want to make, all in the correct belief that licking Trump's orange ass will clear the way for them to do whatever the fuck they want to do.

Errors my ass...I have no idea if Weiss actually believes herself to be a genius or whether she knows she is a very well paid tool of destruction for billionaires, but either way she is accomplishing exactly what her owners want.

[edhopper]

25. Exactly

They don't care about the rep of their News dept. The want to make money on properties and support Trump. All else is meaningless to them.

[BidenRocks]

27. I worked there and got called on it.

Warner Bros. not Brothers.
Catches my eye ever since.

I agree with your points!

[LR3]

31. You are correct. They are actually a former client of mine

Technically Warner Bros Discovery

[Ilikepurple]

38. Yes, the most of our traditional news outlets are more valuable as servants of the rich than being profitable

They are such a small source of the media conglomerates’ income, it would be principled to care about credible news coverage, but a lot more profitable as a device to drive billionaires interests and facilitate future mergers or deregulation.

[multigraincracker]

5. In the end, they will reap what they sow.

History will not be kind to these people

[gerryatwork]

13. If

The US is fortunate enough to have history

[maxsolomon]

14. I wish we'd hurry up with the reaping.

I won't be around when History renders its judgment.

[multigraincracker]

15. I hope we make it.

[LiberalArkie]

29. Who is going to write the history?

[Initech]

7. It took 100 years for CBS to build a reputation.

Last edited Wed Feb 18, 2026, 11:50 AM - Edit history (1)

It came crashing down in a minute because half of this country is so brainwashed by propaganda that they actually wanted the deranged sick fuck back in charge when he did nothing to deserve it. And now their reputation has been completely destroyed because they have to cater to every demand of the fucking asshole or the fucking asshole will pull their broadcasting license, because he is a sick, sadistic piece of shit.

Everything Trump touches.

[hay rick]

8. Paramount gave the keys to the car (CBS News) to a twelve-year-old and she drove it into a ditch.

They don't care. They sat on the porch with cocktails and turned the accident into a home movie.

[Initech]

19. And their billionaire criminal owners added more billions to their ill gotten pile.

Hey MAGA - it's not the immigrants who are destroying America, it's the billionaires!

[UTUSN]

10. K&R. When Anderson's leaving was announced my first reaction was to cheer as his "kicking

WEISS to the curb." After that it has crossed my mind that perhaps she had targeted him and that leaving was cover. But it's just a pop-up in the mind, an unsubstantiated imputation of cynicism. After all, he had already turned down her offer to anchor, which might be a burr under that saddle. Good for him.

[kimbutgar]

11. And now Warner bros is going to destroy itself also by allowing itself to brought by Paramount.

[Initech]

20. And sold to the Saudis.

If genocidal maniac Mohammed Bin Salmon gets his hands on our media, it's game over. He will be able to control a large majority of all the content we see, hear, and consume. It will be the end of the free press as we know it.

Fuck the Saudi oligarchs.

[OGBuzz]

17. James Talarico raised over $2.5 million in just 24 hours after it aired on youtube.

[Fiendish Thingy]

21. I don't think the Ellisons care if the network fails. Nt

[poli-junkie]

22. Same thing is happening with

Bozo’s Washington Post. He doesn’t care it’s fallen as long as he gets those government contracts for his Blue Horizon.

[Ritabert]

23. I've stopped watching everything on CBS.

The only thing I'll miss is "Jeopardy".

[dem4decades]

26. LOL Jeopardy is on ABC here. I now watch ABC with David Muir if I do watch evening news. Don't even

watch the local CBS news anymore, they get fed CBS shit stories to air. I'll watch Jane Pauley on Sunday because I know she'll quit if they ask her to kiss Trump's ring.

[Ritabert]

32. Jeopardy is on ABC in some locales but not here.

[DownriverDem]

30. To me

CBS is dead. Walter Cronkite is spinning in his grave.

[Ritabert]

33. As is Mike Wallace.

[BidenRocks]

35. The Tiffany Network!

It sure sounds good until you find out that Tiffany is associated with CBS from the 1950s when CBS was selling televisions from their high end stores.
Thus the Tiffany Network.
This was built on the PERCEIVED excellence of the network.
Memories of Murrow from the War were still strong and then comes Walter Cronkite.

Nobody ever questioned why it was The Tiffany Network.
Doesn't seem so special anymore, does it?

Tiffany no longer sells televisions and CBS no longer has any credibility.

[BHDem53]

37. And that's the way it is, February 18th, 2026.

[Upthevibe]

40. marmar............

CBS is an absolute disaster.............

[QueerDuck]

41. I wonder where Colbert will land? Will he retire? Will another network grab him?

Does he have a "no-compete" clause wherein he must wait years before moving to a new network (OTA, cable or streaming). Would the "no-compete" clause be nullified since CBS is getting out of the late-nite talk show game anyway, so he wouldn't be competing with any sort of replacement talk show host.

[MarcoZandrini]

42. Bari Weiss....

….was a DEI hire.