Back in October, this author addressed the change in leadership at CBS News (Bari Weiss and the Revival of CBS News) in an article for this publication. As 2026 begins, many of the changes Weiss and her team plan to implement are coming under greater scrutiny and heavy criticism from some mainstream sources. A pushback from the legacy media surprises no one, especially Weiss, but she deserves a chance to proceed with her plans. Beyond that, what her plans are deserves truthful reporting and honest assessments, not knee-jerk reactions. The latest controversy for Weiss involves the delay of a story about the Terrorism Confinement Centre in El Salvador, known as CECOT, its Spanish acronym, on 60 Minutes, a CBS news institution that debuted in 1968. Joe Klein, a long-time member of the legacy press corps, addressed Weiss’ challenges in a Dec. 29, 2025, post on Substack (On Bari Weiss – The Difficulty of Reform in Journalism).
Klein pointed out that the hold on the story does not fit the media narrative. Instead of suggesting that Weiss, a non-partisan actor, has an interest in defending the Trump administration or was soft on Salvadoran dictators or concentration camps, Klein quotes Weiss’ wife, Nellie Bowles, writing in TGIF, and then delves into the state of network TV. Klein suggests, “Network TV has come to abhor tough questions, not just in interviews, but in the stories it chooses to cover—and to avoid the gruesome realities of this world, like war. Talk about sanitizing! How often do you hear: ‘Some of these images may be disturbing.’ Not compared to the real thing. How about showing what battle wounds actually look like? How about not using loaded and inaccurate terms like “gender-affirming” therapy?”
Klein’s article stands as a bulwark against the incessant efforts in the dominant media to oppose Weiss’ commitment to change the delivery of news at a major network that once produced some of the best reporting anywhere. The 60 Minutes story has received an inordinate amount of coverage, most of it suppositions, conjecture, and rumour. Why? Because of the resistance within the Washington press corps. This liberal-dominated sphere of elite news broadcasting has long divorced itself from hard-news reporting or facing the difficulties of admitting the truth, even if a left-wing ideal is wrong, ill-suited, or corrupt. The Somali daycare scandal may be the latest example (PBS continues to deny, dismiss, and massage the facts of this widespread scandal in Minnesota – see Tim Walz From Liability to Lawlessness), but a long list exists. How about the Head Start article Klein wrote during the Obama years? As he succinctly put it:
“Head Start, for example, is beloved—and unquestioned—by libs. There was a massive government study more than twenty years ago that showed the damn thing didn’t work. No one followed up on it. Why was that? The pilot programs, carefully run by educators, usually succeeded. The theory of early education was sound. So I asked Barack Obama’s domestic policy advisor why the results in the study were so dismal. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘it’s a jobs program, not an education program.’ That seemed outrageous, a vestige of 19th-century urban political machine corruption. Educating poor kids should be a top priority of good governance. But the liberal establishment came down on my head when I wrote about the study, bristling with vitriol and anecdotes (‘I work for a really good head start program!’). And deeper, and more outrageous, was the leftist belief, usually sotto voce, that the corruption and ineffectiveness didn’t matter so long as money was going to poor communities.”
Klein provided more examples, including what he called the “fantasy of black voter suppression.” Remember the outrage in Georgia in 2021 when Governor Brian Kemp and the state legislature dared to insist on voter ID? While the federal government was firing people for not taking a vaccine, Major League Baseball became so indignant about the laws demanding people provide proof of who they are that they had to move their mid-season all-star game out of Atlanta to appease the new Biden Administration and its acolytes, who claimed that requiring voter ID was akin to Jim Crow 2.0. Here is Klein eviscerating the myth:
“When I became aware of the prevailing bias, especially regarding racial issues, it was difficult to unsee. It was subtle, but near universal. For years, for example, the left has been selling the fantasy of black voter suppression, and the mainstream media have been lapping it up… without ever noting that blacks tend to vote as a higher proportion of the electorate (14%) than their demographic strength (13%). This stands to reason: The state means more to them. Blacks have gotten disproportionate support from the government since the mid-1960s. They represent 18.7% of the federal workforce. They vote their interests.” To be fair, Klein, not a conservative by any stretch, calls election fraud a right-wing fantasy.
Klein recognizes the importance of Weiss succeeding. He acknowledges that Bret Baier’s Fox News program has provided in-depth, solid reporting missing on the networks for some time now. “Weiss’s larger purpose in delaying the 60 Minutes story about the CECOT prison may be, I hope, to challenge the prevailing culture and assumptions of network news, to try something new—something, I’d hope, as smart and fresh as The Free Press (The Substack Weiss started after leaving the NY Times), which surprises and challenges me almost every time I click on. Here is the important thing about Weiss: she is, defiantly, not a populist. The Free Press is clever and complicated—and it eschews the fake news and foolish pap of the Trumpist right, as well as the inane wokery of the left. It is the best sort of honest broker: variable in its points of view and vehemently written. If Weiss turns CBS into a sibling of The Free Press, the sanity caucus will be thrilled. It is a voice we need.”
The legacy journalists want to undermine Weiss. They have no interest in giving Trump credit for being right about anything. Mostly, they have become shills for the Palestinian cause despite its being obvious that a two-state solution will never work. If it had a chance, why did the Palestinians refuse to begin with Gaza in 2005? As we see streets in Toronto taken over by protestors, we have a better understanding of what has happened to news coverage. The truth gets sacrificed for an ideology. Journalists set facts aside for expediency. A greater cause (preventing Trump from returning to office) means covering up reality (Joe Biden’s mental acuity has fallen through the floor). This story has occurred repeatedly. As Klein asserts, he hopes Weiss continues to bear down: “Uncomfortable truth and un-woke questions would be a start. She may not get there, the institutional forces against her are formidable and their pomposity beyond imagining—but I sense they may be exhausted, and not as formidable as they think…It will certainly take far more than a few months to make any real judgment on Weiss’s CBS. I hope she takes chances and makes mistakes along the way; it will show she’s trying new stuff. But you can count on this: If she does succeed in renovating TV journalism—and turns the network evening news into something worth watching again—you won’t hear about it from the sour tribe now trying to tear her down.”
What about in Canada? The problem has burrowed so deeply into our bloodstream that news sources receiving the government’s stamp of approval receive subsidies. You can be sure that those sources questioning the institutional framework get nothing. Regardless, they are thriving, increasing, and informing more Canadians every day. Look for a piece about these alternative media sources in the weeks ahead. We all seek a free press, one that eschews bias. A news source that places a premium on the truth, not a preferred point of view. Too many Canadians remain asleep. Let’s hope 2026 opens our eyes wide!
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
