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Bari’s Bootcamp

Last week, CBS News offered buyouts to 40 or so employees, some of whom seized the moment to attack Bari Weiss’s “heterodox journalism” and a culture of self-censorship on their way out the door. But legacy media’s challenges run far deeper than mere credibility—the industry is also losing its connection to the audience, itself.

Bari Weiss
But what’s happening at CBS News, while unfortunate, is both unremarkable and predictable. Bari arrived with her editorial convictions, sure, but she also inherited a bloated, cash-bleeding, chronically third-place news division with a legacy cost structure. She saw an 'Evening News' staffed by 40 people and immediately concluded it probably needed only half that. Photo: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
February 13, 2026

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Earlier this week, a thirtysomething producer at CBS Evening News elected to take the buyout offer that Bari Weiss and network president Tom Cibrowski had extended to the show’s staff. The producer, Alicia Hastey, was one of about a dozen of the show’s 40 employees to accept the offer, which is a precursor to the long-anticipated cuts that, I’m told, will hit the news division in a matter of weeks.