The Free Press founder Bari Weiss, who worked at The New York Times for five years until resigning over her frustrations with censorship and bullying in legacy media, is reported to be in talks with broadcasting network giant CBS to sell her successful journalistic venture for $200 million. The deal will reportedly include an influential editorial role for Weiss as well.

Weiss started The Free Press as a Substack newsletter in 2022 and has since racked up some 1.2 million subscribers. She was one of the first journalists to see the ceiling-free potential of starting an independent news site on Substack, and her efforts have clearly paid dividends.

People online responded differently to the news of her site’s looming acquisition. Many quickly congratulated Weiss and regarded this turn of events as a kind of poetic justice. The woman who was forced out of a mainstream newsroom for her heterodox views might end up reigning in one of America’s most storied media institutions. Others, including Megyn Kelly, who is a friend of Weiss’s, said she feared that CBS, although it might be trying to signal a change in its approach to journalism and free speech, would end up frustrating Weiss and turning The Free Press into something it’s not. The “free” in “free press” might sadly go out the door due to the whims and pressures of a big corporation.

CBS in the Headlights

CBS has headlined news stories for months now, starting with its 60 Minutes interview with former presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The interview was edited before it aired to make Harris seem a little more put together in some of her responses. Months later, the Trump administration sued CBS for millions and won.

And then came the Stephen Colbert debacle. CBS announced that Colbert’s “Late Show” will end in May 2026. Skydance Media is also acquiring CBS’ parent company, Paramount, who said the decision to cancel the show was purely financial. This massive $8 billion merger is said to come with significant changes to the company’s structure and guiding principles. Perhaps the culture will shift enough for Weiss to have much more of a say in how The Free Press operates. CBS is not nearly as influential or prominent as it once was, and The Free Press is a major success story. Reporter Matt Taibbi reminds us that legacy media’s influence is dying and that the CBS talks with The Free Press signal a desire to recover trust. Taibbi writes,

Journalism is dying because of a succession of factual disasters, but the major cross-industry problem is a universal belief that audience is owed. From the Nation episodes to the insane New York Times staff-led purges, modern journalists think your eyeballs belong to them. 

According to Taibbi, who is a major figure in American journalism and his own interesting story about working for Rolling Stone, reporters and the organizations they work for still have to earn trust with their readers. That includes organizations with a long history of doing good and honest journalism. Legacy and reputation aren’t enough. If journalists condescend to their audiences and belittle certain voices due to some political agenda, they shouldn’t be surprised if the country stops listening. Maybe those who fear Weiss’s influence in media and culture need a reminder that they were the ones who helped to boot her to the curb. Journalist Mark Halperin, CEO of the interactive platform called 2WAY, calls out this double standard constantly in his own work. If journalists want to regain public trust, they need to cover everything and do so objectively.

CBS went from giving softball interviews to political figures to offering a job to Bari Weiss. It just goes to show that the cultural “vibe” can, indeed, shift, and that sometimes those who laugh last laugh best.