Dan Rather Calls Bari Weiss Appointment Over CBS News a “Dark Day” as Some Compare It to Elon Transforming Twitter

In October 2025, the media landscape was shaken when Paramount Skydance announced that it had acquired Bari Weiss’s media company, The Free Press, and appointed Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News: a newly created position meant to redefine the network’s editorial direction. The move immediately generated intense discussion across the industry. For some, Weiss’s promotion represented an overdue disruption to a stale corporate news culture; for others, it was an alarming step toward politicizing one of America’s most storied journalistic institutions. Among the critics was legendary CBS anchor Dan Rather, who called the appointment a “dark day” for the network, warning that CBS was trading its hard-earned reputation for independence for ideological experimentation.

To say Dan Rather was critiqued online following his pronouncement is an understatement. 

A CBS News report by Dan Rather warns that if we don’t stop digging up ancient carbon and burning it, 25% of Florida will be underwater.

This was broadcast 43 years ago.

I suspect Florida will be underwater any day now. pic.twitter.com/b4AiVicCgY

— Chris Martz (@ChrisMartzWX) October 12, 2025

Bari Weiss, a former New York Times columnist who left that paper in 2020 after decrying what she described as a culture of “illiberalism,” has since built The Free Press into a profitable digital brand focused on commentary and independent journalism. She would traditionally fit exactly with what the left would want in a newsroom editor… she’s smart, a woman, married to a woman, and she’s socially liberal. Her critics, however, argue that she often serves as a figurehead for anti-establishment and center-right viewpoints that accuse mainstream media of suppressing dissenting opinions. Paramount’s deal—which gives Weiss both operational control of The Free Press and oversight of CBS’s editorial direction—signals a profound cultural realignment for the network. Under the new structure, she reports directly to Paramount’s David Ellison, the new power broker behind the Skydance merger, rather than through traditional CBS News hierarchies.

Ellison and Paramount executives have framed the move as part of a larger strategy to “modernize” CBS and reconnect it with younger audiences who have largely abandoned network news. Internally, however, the response has been mixed. Some CBS journalists see Weiss as a fresh voice capable of reenergizing the newsroom, while others worry that her lack of television experience and strong ideological associations could erode CBS’s credibility. The network, still recovering from a bruising few years—marked by legal settlements, declining ratings, and leadership changes—now faces the challenge of reinventing itself without alienating its core audience.

Bill Owens, the former producer of 60 minutes – YouTube, CBS Evening News

Dan Rather’s rebuke captured the unease of many long-time journalists. The 93-year-old former anchor, who spent decades as the face of CBS News, said Weiss’s appointment “casts a shadow” over the institution he helped build. He questioned her credentials to lead such a large and complex newsroom, contrasting her digital commentary background with CBS’s legacy of investigative reporting and global correspondents. Rather warned that placing editorial control in the hands of someone closely tied to corporate leadership could compromise journalistic independence, the very foundation that made CBS News a trusted national institution. He compared the move to an “experiment with ideology over integrity,” arguing that journalism should never become a branding exercise.

Critics of the appointment see parallels to Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover of Twitter, when a powerful individual with strong ideological convictions gained control of a major communications platform. In both cases, a self-styled outsider promised to restore “balance” and “free speech” to what they viewed as an overly partisan institution. Both Musk and Weiss positioned themselves as reformers fighting cultural conformity, yet in doing so, each unleashed fears about centralized control and unpredictable leadership. In Musk’s case, rapid policy changes, layoffs, and reinstatements of banned users led to chaos and advertiser flight. Observers now wonder if Weiss’s influence could produce similar disruption at CBS, albeit in a more restrained, institutional form.

Elon Musk on Everyday Astronaut on X

Still, the analogy has limits. Twitter was a social media company dependent on algorithms and code; CBS is a legacy newsroom with strict editorial standards, public trust, and unionized staff. Weiss cannot simply “flip a switch” to reshape its culture the way Musk reshaped Twitter. Yet both events signal a broader transformation in how power flows through American media—away from faceless corporations and toward high-profile individuals whose personalities define their platforms.

Weiss’s supporters insist that she offers exactly what CBS needs: an independent thinker willing to challenge groupthink and rebuild trust in journalism. Her detractors counter that CBS’s credibility depends on neutrality, not personality. If Weiss steers the network too sharply toward ideological commentary, they warn, CBS could alienate the mainstream audience that still turns to it for straight reporting.

Ultimately, Bari Weiss’s takeover represents a high-stakes gamble by Paramount. It’s a bet that a controversial, independent-minded journalist can breathe life into a legacy brand without destroying the very trust that built it. For Dan Rather and others who came of age when CBS News stood as the “Tiffany Network” of broadcast journalism, that gamble feels less like innovation and more like a rupture—a turning point in which a once-revered institution may be trading its past for an uncertain future. Whether history remembers this as a renaissance or a “dark day” will depend on whether Weiss can prove that disruption and integrity can coexist inside America’s oldest newsroom.