CBS News Sidelines Actual Journalists for Erika Kirk's Town Hall

If providing news and information were the goal, then journalists like Gayle King or Norah O’Donnell would be asking the questions — not Trump-approved pundit Bari Weiss.

Illustration by Riley Levine

CBS is calling its upcoming prime-time ‘town hall’ with Erika Kirk a “news program.” And, just like that, nearly a century of excellence in news reporting is gone.

Don’t get me wrong: A real interview with MAGA activist Charlie Kirk’s widow would be newsworthy. CBS still has the talent to do that job. Jane Pauley, Gayle King, Lesley Stahl, John Dickerson, Bill Whitaker, Norah O’Donnell, Cecilia Vega, Vladimir Duthiers, and Scott Pelley are just some of the many CBS News journalists eminently qualified to interview any newsmaker in the world. They have literally hundreds of years of experience between them — including interviewing presidents, kings, and even despots.

None of these qualified journalists will be part of the broadcast. Instead, the network’s new Trump-approved “Editor-in Chief” Bari Weiss will do the job. In sidelining journalists to take up the microphone herself, Weiss is actively moving CBS from news to advocacy. That is by design. Weiss wasn’t installed at CBS because of her journalism chops. Despite what the bio says on her ironically titled “Honestly” podcast, Weiss is not a news reporter and never has been. She’s a longtime pundit with very Trumpy views especially about mainstream media.

Not only is she not a reporter, her blog — the one David Ellison reportedly paid $150 million for — is not a news outlet. As media critic Oliver Darcy says: “In truth, it’s an opinion site, and Weiss is primarily a commentator, not a reporter. When was the last time The Free Press broke a notable story? In the history of The Free Press, what major stories has it broken?”

Everything about this is wrong. Creating a special event around Kirk is itself a curious decision that is better explained by partisan aims than news judgment. When was the last time a major news organization hosted a prime time town hall featuring a political activist? I can’t find evidence of one. Prime time town halls with political candidates and office holders are the norm — but as far as I can tell, CBS has never hosted one of those either.

My search did turn up one town hall on CBS News featuring then-President Barack Obama in May 2011 that aired on a weekday morning — not primetime. That event featured questions from journalists. This one will not. The audience in the Obama town hall was selected from a database “to assure a diverse range of the population based on age, sex, race, socio-economic levels, and political preferences.” For the Erika Kirk town hall, CBS is screening the audience to guarantee a sympathetic crowd.

As Jeremy Barr of The Guardian reports, “Those who request online to attend the Kirk town hall, are asked a series of questions. The first question is: “Do you consider yourself a conservative? If so, why?” Will you be allowed to attend if the answer to that question is no? Likely not. This event is obviously for MAGA and MAGA alone, making it clear that (as we’ve suspected), the new owners of CBS News have designs on turning the network into another right-wing entertainment and propaganda tool.

In press releases, news stories filed under “politics” and program listings, CBS is labeling this town hall as a presentation of CBS News. If providing news and information were the goal — as it has been for CBS’ 99-years — then journalists Gayle King or Norah O’Donnell would be interviewing Erika Kirk for a segment on the CBS Morning News or 60 Minutes. Instead, we’ll see Weiss in the anchor chair earning MAGA brownie points with every credulous question and comment.

It’s likely that none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for Trump’s relentless attacks on the fact-based news media. Recall that he used a frivolous lawsuit to attack CBS over a 2024 Kamala Harris campaign interview on 60 Minutes. Trump claimed the interview was edited to make Harris look better and that the interview hurt his campaign. In fact, the edits did no such thing, and were entirely in keeping with journalistic standards.

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Instead of litigating, CBS’ owners opted to give Trump cash, then to give him control. They sold the network to Trump ally Larry Elison and his son, David, who then anointed Weiss head of news. Weiss, of course, had already gotten quite a bit of attention by parroting Trump’s claims about the editing of the Harris interview, so it was a perfect MAGA match.

Now that she’s in charge, Weiss is happy to edit interviews. On her watch, a recent interview with Trump on 60 Minutes was dramatically edited. Ninety minutes of tape was chopped down to just twenty-eight minutes for air. The editors cut, among other things, glowing comments Trump made about CBS and Weiss herself. Now, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) has launched an investigation into that editing process.

The entire premise of this CBS makeover/ takeover is troubling and grossly misleading. Ellison, Weiss, and their allies, like comedian Bill Maher, have talked about making CBS “balanced and fact-based.” That’s dangerous autocratic doublespeak designed to jettison the solid journalism practices that have long made CBS News balanced and fact-based in favor of partisan propaganda. I agree with writer Mike Brock who says the Weiss “version of “balance” is just authoritarianism with better branding.”

He adds this about Weiss’ CBS strategy:

“It treats coordinated attacks on legitimate journalism as evidence requiring response rather than as bad-faith manipulation requiring exposure. It makes perceived bias—manufactured through deliberate campaigns—into a problem journalism must solve by changing coverage rather than a weapon journalism must resist by maintaining standards.

The danger isn’t that journalists become propagandists overnight—it’s that they internalize propaganda’s logic while believing they’re protecting neutrality.

This is precisely how authoritarian movements capture journalism without needing to shut it down. You don’t need to close newspapers when you can convince editors that “balance” means giving equal weight to demonstrable lies and documented facts. You don’t need to jail journalists when you can make them internalize the frame that reporting what’s actually happening is “partisan” if it makes one side look bad.

For generations, Americans could count on CBS News. Now, when our country most needs excellent journalism and courageous media companies, CBS is throwing away its credibility in an ill-advised propaganda stunt. It’s a gift to Trump and his autocratic ambitions but those of us who value democracy and a vigorous free press will pay the price.

Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.” Read the original column here.