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CBS News is set to hand over its reins to The Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss as Paramount acquires her company for $155M. David Ellison, CEO of Paramount called Weiss "a proven champion of independent, principled journalism." He's confident her "entrepreneurial drive and editorial vision will invigorate CBS News." As editor-in-chief of CBS News, Weiss is to shape editorial priorities, champion core values across platforms, and lead innovation in how the organization reports and delivers the news. Weiss will report directly to Ellison and partner with CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, who reports to Paramount chair of TV media, George Cheeks. Weiss left her job at the Wall Street Journal to follow her boss Brett Stephens to the New York Times. She exited the paper in 2020, claiming that she had been “bullied” by liberal colleagues for her more conservative viewpoints. Expectedly, her leadership of CBS News has raised the ire of many liberal journalists. Founded in 2021, The Free Press has 1.5M subscribers, of which 170K of them are paid. Paramount is breaking down the site's paywall gthourgh October 12 for a special Free Press "free week."
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C-SPAN comes on board as an official media partner of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, the bipartisan Commission charged by Congress to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. C-SPAN will carry America250 Commission events across all its platforms — television, web, social media, YouTube, radio, and podcasts. The network says it will provide a minimum of 48 hours of dedicated America250 programming each week across its television networks. “This partnership is a continuation of C-SPAN’s enduring commitment to civic education and transparency, ensuring all Americans can take part in the nation’s 250th anniversary,” said C-SPAN CEO Sam Feist.
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A new Gallup survey says that the level of trust that US audiences have in the media has hit a new low. Only 28 percent of those surveyed said that they had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio. That number is down from 31 percent and 40 percent five years ago. On the flip side, 36 percent said that they had “not very much” confidence in the media, and 40 percent they had no confidence at all. When Gallup started measuring trust in the media in the 1970s, between 68 percent and 72 percent of respondents said they had confidence in reporting. However, by 2004, the number has dropped to 44 percent. For Republicans, the trust number descended into the single digits (eight percent), while 51 percent of Democrats said they trust the media. In addition, respondents 65 and older voiced a significantly higher level of trust (43 percent) than did any younger age group. “With confidence fractured along partisan and generational lines, the challenge for news organizations is not only to deliver fair and accurate reporting, but also to regain credibility across an increasingly polarized and skeptical public,” the study’s authors say.
McClatchy, which owns 29 daily papers across 14 states (including The Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee and Kansas City Star), launches a wave of layoffs that extends to at least 13 of those papers... The Toledo Blade, which was founded in 1835, is set to shut down on Dec. 31, unless owner Block Communications manages to find a buyer for it... A bill awaiting approval by California governor Gavin Newsom would give local newsrooms a boost. 
Fox News Media issued a pretty sparse release to announce the departure of one of its stars. “Effective today, Maria Bartiromo is no longer with FOX News Media,” it reads.
Brunswick Group partner John Simons has joined CNN as senior director of business & media. He held top jobs at Time and the Wall Street Journal.
WNET, the nation’s largest public media company, names Edward O’Keefe its next president and CEO, effective September 21. O’Keefe succeeds Neal Shapiro, who becomes president emeritus and will retire at the end of the year... The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, which would empower news publishers and other content providers to defend themselves by mandating transparency for all bots crawling their sites, in introduced in the House by Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC)... Google gets socked by European Union regulators with a $1 billion fine for using the platform’s dominance as a search engine to illegally undercut competition.
Boston Globe Media acquires InstaTrac, a company that provides subscription-based services aimed at making government information easier to find, track, and understand... AARP names former New Republic CEO and publisher Michael Caruso as its SVP and chief content officer, unifying the organization's portfolio of media, live events and digital platforms... The Fund for American Studies, an educational nonprofit, awards its inaugural Journalism Excellence Fellowships.
