CBS News
Since the Ellison family took control of Paramount in August 2025, CBS News has been placed under the editorial control of Bari Weiss, a career Israel advocate, while correspondents and bureau staff accused of reporting too critically on Israel's genocide in Gaza have been fired or pushed out. The new owners also made editorial concessions to the Trump administration to secure regulatory approval of the merger.
Weiss has a long record throughout her carrier of trying to silence any criticism against Israel and spreading Zionism and Israeli propaganda.
Ellison family ownership
Larry Ellison provided $6 billion of the $8 billion used to finance the Skydance-Paramount merger and holds about 35.5% of the voting interest in the combined company through his entity Sayonara LLC, according to regulatory filings. On October 6, 2026, Paramount Skydance completed its $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros and Discovery, placing CNN under the same owners as CBS News. Larry Ellison personally guaranteed funding to win that bidding war.
Larry Ellison is one of the largest private donors to the Israeli military. At the 2017 Friends of the IDF gala he gave $16.6 million, the largest donation of the night, to build facilities for IOF infantry battalions. He is a prosecution witness in Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial, yet in August 2021 hosted Netanyahu and his family on Lanai, the Hawaiian island he owns 98% of. Haaretz reported that Ellison had also offered Netanyahu a seat on Oracle's board. Oracle's own record of military contracts with Israel is documented in the Oracle article.
Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief
On October 6, 2025, Paramount acquired The Free Press, the outlet founded by Bari Weiss, and named Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News. The purchase price was reported at around $150 million. She interviewed Netanyahu in 2022 and has backed Israel throughout its genocide on Gaza. According to Drop Site News, David Ellison was drawn to Weiss because of her "pro-Israel stance.".
Campaign against Arab professors at Columbia
Weiss first came to public attention at Columbia University in 2004 and 2005 through Columbians for Academic Freedom, a campaign that targeted Arab professors in the Middle East studies department over their criticism of Israel and demanded they be disciplined. A Columbia panel in 2005 found "no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic,". Weiss spent a year in Israel on a youth fellowship and helped run a high school program whose stated aim was "to plant a seed of Israel advocacy".
The Free Press and Israeli war propaganda
After October 7, 2023, The Free Press produced more content on Israel than on any other subject in its history, by its own account. In 2025 it published "The Gaza Famine Myth," denying the famine Israel imposed on Gaza. In June 2025 it ran an exclusive interview with Yasser Abu Shabab, leader of an Israeli-backed militia in Gaza, without disclosing that it was arranged by the Center for Peace Communications, a nonprofit funded in part by the Adelson Family Foundation (a pro-Israeli private foundation and whose board includes figures from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).
Removal of journalists over Gaza coverage
In October 2025, weeks after Weiss took over, CBS News fired Debora Patta, a South Africa-based foreign correspondent of 12 years, in a round of about 100 layoffs. In August 2025 Patta had interviewed US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee about starvation in Gaza, and Huckabee publicly accused CBS of editing the interview. Sources told the New York Post that Weiss may have played a role, and that Patta was not being paid out her new three-year contract, according to the Post's report.
In April 2026, London bureau chief Claire Day, at CBS for nearly 25 years, was pushed out after clashing with Weiss over coverage of Gaza and Iran. According to TheWrap, Weiss considered the London bureau so biased against Israel that "they might as well be Hamas,".
Sources:
- Drop Site News A Pro-Israel Nonprofit is Funneling News Content Through Bari Weiss's 'Free Press'
- Gray News Emmy-winning journalist Tony Dokoupil named anchor of CBS Evening News
- Haaretz Larry Ellison, Netanyahu Trial Witness, Offers Ex-PM Seat on Oracle Board
- Mondoweiss For Bari Weiss, Israel advocacy was both ideology and good career move
- New York Post via Yahoo News CBS reporter fired in wake of firestorm over Gaza interview with Mike Huckabee now looking to sue
- Paramount Paramount Announces Deal to Acquire The Free Press
- The Free Press The Stories and Stakes of War in Israel
- The Guardian Paramount completes $111bn acquisition of Warner Bros to form new media empire Skydance
- The Intercept NYT's Bari Weiss Falsely Denies Her Years of Attacks on the Academic Freedom of Arab Scholars Who Criticize Israel
- The Nation The Endless Hypocrisy of Bari Weiss
- Times of Israel Netanyahu on vacation at island owned by Larry Ellison, a witness in graft trial
- TheWrap Larry Ellison to Hold 35.5% of Family's Voting Rights in New Paramount
- TheWrap CBS News Hires Shayndi Raice as Foreign Editor After Ousting London Bureau Chief
- Ynet News FIDF break fundraising record with $54 million for IDF soldiers