What If We Made The New York Times, But Without Jamelle Bouie

There's been some more sinister tinkering of content at CBS, but fundamentally that is the level of the vision of Bari Weiss.

When Bari Weiss took the reins of CBS News in October, her message was clear: that the public had lost trust in the network and that major change was needed to win viewers back and return it to its glory days. But through a series of actions over her turbulent six-month tenure as editor in chief, it appears the proud anti-woke warrior has instead helped destroy that trust—something that is now laid bare in the network’s rapidly shrinking ratings. Indeed, new ratings data obtained by Status isn’t just bad for Weiss. It is catastrophic.

That vision isn't precisely identical to Kinsely-era Slate "contrarianism," but it is fundamentally equivalent. It is the same repackaging of elite conventional wisdom, maybe with the dial turned one notch to the right, as the bold truth-telling contrarianism that has been the staple of media outlets my entire life.