Pulling power: Now CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 3, 2022, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Welcome to the latest edition of Breaker. If this email has been forwarded, you can subscribe here and send your questions and complaints here. If you have a tip contact the 24/7 Breaker Tip Hotline via text or Signal # 551 655 2343. Anonymity guaranteed!
Breaker has been documenting the trials and tribulations of Bari Weiss since our May column, “Why Is Everyone Fleeing The Press.” In tonight's present-filled edition, we go inside CBS News, where there is fear and loathing about Weiss after her decision to yank a 60 Minutes piece at the last minute (and we have an update on when that piece will officially air).
Plus, The California Post makes a big poach from The Hollywood Reporter, and not to be outdone, sister title The New York Post adds a new exec as it makes a big internal coverage change.
Also tonight, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie, in his final Hot Sauce of the year, delivers five major media themes from 2025 that require your attention.
We have a bumper reading, listening, and watching list to keep you occupied over the holidays and Journo Jobs is back. We have several internship opportunities at Conde Nast, as well as gigs at Business Insider, The New York Times, CNN, Semafor, and Bloomberg.
Finally, a programming note – we are off on Christmas Day. For all those who celebrate, we wish you a very Merry Christmas. Breaker is praying to the newsgods that Santa stuffs our stockings with saucy scooplets, and we will be back in your inbox on Tuesday with a very special year-end edition of Breaker.
And don’t forget you can give Breaker the best present this holiday season – a tip by contacting our 24/7 tipline via text, Signal or the old-fashioned phone call 551 655 2343.
Mentioned tonight: Shane Smith, Scott Pelley, Neal Mohan, Suzy Weiss, Ted Sarandos, Tony Dokoupil, Tucker Carlson, Keith Poole, Nick Papps, Barclay Crawford, Melanie Bromley, Charles Forelle, Adam Rubenstein, Candace Owens, Adrienne O’Hara, David Ellison, Larry Ellison, Tina Brown, Joe Scarborough, Graydon Carter, Janice Min, Emily Sundberg, Jeff Fager, Vicky Ward, Piers Morgan, Ben Smith, Lionel Barber, Alan Rusbridger, Sarah Ellison, Joe Flint, Kate King, Michael Grynbaum, Brock Colyar, Alex Sherman, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Robert Sherman, Alex Heath, Aidan McLaughlin, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Olivia Nuzzi, Mark Stenberg, Max Read, and more.
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Tick, Tick…Boom!
(Exclusive.) Print and TV journalism are two completely different beasts. Breaker should know. We started our career as a television reporter before the newsgods intervened, deciding that instead we would become an ink-stained wretch.
Bari Weiss is certainly learning that big difference the hard way. Her last-minute decision to yank a piece that had been cleared by standards and legal about Salvadoran hell-hole prison CECOT has plunged CBS News into utter chaos. The piece, reported by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, was due to air on Sunday and was pulled just hours before it was scheduled to roll out.
Weiss entered CBS News with much fanfare. A $150 million acquisition of The Free Press by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison will do that. But just two months into the gig, it appears Weiss is running CBS News as if it were a side hustle.
She has spent the first few months of her tenure as editor-in-chief hiring her friends and family (literally). She moved former New York Times assistant opinion editor and The Free Press contributing editor Adam Rubenstein across to CBS News as deputy editor. We broke the news that she had hired the out-of-work and down-on-his-luck former Wall Street Journal editor Charles Forelle to be another of her deputies. Both – like Weiss – lack broadcast experience.
We were there to document her beefy bodyguards that she has been running around town with, and we first reported she made a jaunt across the pond in her Free Press founder capacity to give a speech and stayed at the posh Claridges. She then announced new programming by way of a series of town halls, where she is the host, raising the question: Is Weiss talent or an exec?
We may have gotten somewhat of an answer this week with the utter clown show that took place Sunday afternoon, when just hours before 60 Minutes was scheduled to air, the network updated their listings. “Editor’s Note: The broadcast lineup for tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes has been updated. Our report “Inside CECOT” will air in a future broadcast.”
Weiss viewed the segment that had been in the works for weeks on Thursday evening. She had notes that we are told were small and were resolved with 60 Minutes producers. The promo started rolling out on Friday, and the listing was published.
But by Saturday, Weiss called a “reverse ferret.” She wanted more voices. She wanted more reporting. The great mystery here is what happened in those intervening hours (we’ve spent the last two days asking all the key players, and no one seems to know.)
You may be able to pull a story at the eleventh hour when you’re running a Substack (that created a name for itself with an incessant supply of DEI rage bait stories), but when you’re in TV land, it’s a lot more difficult, and viewers (and reporters) are going to notice.
Breaker has learned within 60 Minutes, the plan is to have the segment air…
Six Degrees of Murdoch
(Exclusive.) The California Post continues its hiring spree, raiding The Hollywood Reporter to poach their star writer, Peter Kiefer, who will join in the new year as senior columnist for Page Six Hollywood. Kiefer was THR’s main scoop generator.
As Breaker first reported last week, California Post editor-in-chief Nick “Pappsy” Papps has already attracted top talent, including Barclay Crawford, who is joining from The Daily Mail, as deputy editor-in-chief.
Meantime, the New York Post has bolstered its ranks with the hiring of Melanie Bromley, who has joined as executive entertainment editor as the Post merges…
The Breaker Pod: David Remnick on New Yorker Succession, Trump, Bezos, and the Press Under Pressure
(Exclusive.) Our guest on the final Breaker Pod for 2025 is none other than David Remnick. Remnick has been the editor of The New Yorker since 1998, a publication he originally joined as a staff writer back in 1992.
This week’s pod was recorded live at the two Michelin-starred restaurant Saga, perched sixty-three floors above the Financial District (Cheers to Kent Hospitality Group for inviting us down).
We asked Remnick if he had read either ex-Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter’s “When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines” or NYT Media Correspondent Michael Grynbaum’s “Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped America.”
“I did read them, and I've read many in the past, and I've read all the New Yorker books,” Remnick admitted, but do any of the excesses of the Condé glory days still hold up? “That whole business where your assistant flies out to California to prepare your hotel room for you, what the hell?”
While The New Yorker continues to build on its legacy, we asked Remnick about his future with the publication and if or when his time at the helm might come to an end.
“You don't stand in the same river for very long.” Remnick revealed, “William Shawn, who was a great editor, maybe the best editor of the 20th century, probably stayed too long…I can’t speak for him as a person, but I'm not sure it was good for the institution.”
Remnick also shares his thoughts on Donald Trump’s attacks on the media, his time reporting from Moscow in the 1980s, and reveals the gutsiest editorial decision he’s had to make as The New Yorker’s editor.
Catch more in this week's episode of The Breaker Pod.
Bored over the holidays? Then it’s a good time to revisit our stellar series of interviews that was season two of The Breaker Pod.
Tina Brown, Joe Scarborough, Janice Min, Jeff Fager, Vicky Ward, Piers Morgan, Alex Sherman, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Robert Sherman, and Alex Heath ALL joined us for a chinwag.
Make sure you check us out and subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, where you can watch and listen to all of this season.
We are already starting to book guests for season three of The Breaker Pod that will premiere in 2026. If you have a suggestion for a guest or would like your venue featured, get in touch!