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CNN
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Paramount’s owner-in-waiting, David Ellison, met with journalist entrepreneur Bari Weiss on Friday about a possible tie-up between CBS News and her startup The Free Press.
The pair met on the sidelines of an annual gathering of media moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Ellison has been holding talks with Weiss in recent weeks as he awaits Trump administration approval of the pending merger between Paramount and his firm, Skydance Media.
Once the merger takes effect, Ellison will oversee Paramount, including its storied CBS News division.
Ellison has been tight-lipped about his vision for CBS, so his interest in The Free Press is a significant signal about his plans to invest in reporting and analysis.
Ellison is said to be interested in infusing Weiss’s editorial perspective into CBS News, as the media newsletter Status first reported last month. The New York Times reported on Skydance’s “early talks” to acquire The Free Press on Friday.
Weiss became something of a journalistic household name after she quit The Times in 2020 and blasted its “illiberal environment.” One year later, she had gained enough of a following on her Substack-hosted publication, originally named Common Sense, to start hiring a staff.
In her original pitch for the publication, she wrote, “There are tens of millions of Americans who aren’t on the hard left or the hard right who feel that the world has gone mad.”
Weiss said her website, later renamed The Free Press, was for people who “prefer to think for themselves.” She gained subscribers, but also critics, through the site’s volume of so-called anti-woke columns and stories. She has similarly won both support and scrutiny for her strong support of Israel – a view that Ellison has also been outspoken about.
Earlier this year New York magazine described The Free Press as a media organ that “both wants to excoriate liberals but not fold fully into the MAGA wing.” One recent column was titled “Have You Heard The Good News?” and was subtitled, “Because the progressive left and the MAGA right clearly have not.”
The Free Press is more of a digital magazine than an up-to-the-minute network news operation like CBS News — but that could make it a complement to CBS’s current offerings.
It also has a growing web video arm, composed mostly of YouTube-style interviews and opinionated chats.
Last year the startup was valued at around $100 million, according to a Financial Times report.
A spokesperson for Ellison declined to comment. A representative for The Free Press could not immediately be reached.
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