Liberal media clash with CBS, Washington Post over anti-Trump coverage

The liberal media includes a cadre of media reporters who see their job as waging war against any media owner or manager who might move even slightly toward the center. They are more than happy to find allies in newsrooms and give them anonymity to trash anyone who doesn’t see their job as impeaching and imprisoning President Donald Trump and describing everyone who works for him as the equivalent of the Gestapo.

CBS News, under new owner David Ellison and his handpicked Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, became a hot topic again this week when Weiss held a meeting with the entire staff to clear the air on all the anonymous sources disparaging her behind her back. The Daily Beast headline reflected their inclination: “MAGA-savvy CBS boss nervously challenges entire staff to quit.” New evening news anchor Tony Dokoupil’s headlines label him as “MAGA-coded.”

Critics of this new regime like to predict impending doom. The Ringer literally caricatured Weiss’s CBS as “pancaked against the mountainside, Wile E. Coyote style.” Variety’s CBS sources stated that the network was on the verge of a “death spiral” that would be “difficult to reverse.” CBS News has been in third place for decades and its audience continues to decline, but simply adding viewpoint diversity is “death spiral” material.

Weiss was outspoken about the declining appeal of traditional media. “We’re not making the product that enough people want,” he said. He is very similar to other network chiefs in that he realizes that most young Americans do not watch TV news or listen to traditional radio. They will need to capture them in another format. The “graying” of the audience is a difficult reality.

BARI WEISS SUGGESTS THAT HER DELAYED 60-MINUTE SECTION OF CECOT WAS NOT ‘FAIR’ IN HER NOTE TO STAFF

But liberal conservatives can’t stop trying to find new audiences by featuring dissenting views or “news judgments” that aren’t fervently anti-Trump. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik relied on eight anonymous CBS complainants. Some were outraged that the “CBS Evening News” skimmed the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6 in less than a minute and ended the show with a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek segment about Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s memes. Dokoupil disturbed those inside by saying, “Marco Rubio, we salute you.”

The traditional CBS approach can be seen on “Sunday Morning” a year ago, on Jan. 12, 2025, when CBS correspondent Martha Teichner congratulated then-President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken under the title “Man of the World.” Teichner, Hillary Clinton’s classmate at Wellesley, gushed over Blinken’s “photobombing” of a photo of female secretaries of state at a NATO meeting and congratulated Blinken as a square. He “promoted music diplomacy by performing the Muddy Waters blues standard ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ in a suit and tie.” Greeting Democrats is the norm.

Adding to the bias, media reporters are also upset with Washington Post CEO Will Lewis, who is expected to announce mass layoffs any day now, along with expected cuts to sports and foreign coverage, which will not yield profitable results. Making a newspaper less broad-based might be the wrong strategy, but it’s fascinating to see journalists blaming newspaper owners and “business.”

BARI WEISS TELLS STAFF THAT ’60 MINUTES’ CECOT STORY IS NOT READY, SAYS THE RESPECT AMONG COLLEAGUES IS UNACCEPTABLE

Former Post reporter Ashley Parker tweeted: “I don’t see how firing a bunch of talented, hard-working journalists solves a fundamental problem with publishing and business. The Post deserves better.” An anonymous Postie claimed: “The newsroom is being punished for the utter incompetence of the owner and publisher.”

Journalists who accuse a self-made billionaire of incompetence are better off remaining anonymous. All of this makes journalists look like a class of entitled brats. When people stop buying newspapers and lose $100 million a year, don’t blame “talented journalists”, it’s a “business problem”.

CLICK FOR OTHER OPINIONS OF FOX NEWS

Glenn Kessler, the Post’s former fact-checker, spoke for journalists when he told Fox News Digital: “Many people have dedicated their professional careers to the Post and are concerned about the disintegration of an important American institution.” But will it “disintegrate” through layoffs or by appearing friendlier to Trump?

The same internal panic is playing out on “public broadcasting” networks after Trump and Republicans canceled taxpayer funding. PBS recently canceled “PBS News Weekend” and instead created two weekend programs that do not need weekend staff.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD FOX NEWS APPLICATION

But liberal conservatives can’t stop trying to find new audiences by featuring dissenting views or “news judgments” that aren’t fervently anti-Trump.

NPR published a long, scratchy article by 19 reporters about how Trump has attempted “a sweeping expansion of executive power while eroding democratic norms.” “Trump targeted free speech by seeking to control and alter information, including defunding public media,” NPR charged, under a propagandistic graphic showing Trump pulling the electrical plug from the wall.

These media activists equate their attack journalism with “democratic norms,” as if “democracy” is defined as crushing Republicans and helping Democrats win as many elections as possible. No one should challenge their ideological “control” over information, or they will become a pack of tyrants.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM TIM GRAHAM