{"id":382,"date":"2026-06-08T20:40:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=382"},"modified":"2026-06-08T20:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T20:40:02","slug":"fired-journalist-says-bari-weiss-pushed-to-air-propaganda-on-cbs-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=382","title":{"rendered":"Fired Journalist Says Bari Weiss Pushed to Air Propaganda on CBS News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Truthout is a vital news source and a living history of political struggle. If you think our work is valuable, <\/span><\/i>support us with a donation<\/span><\/i> of any size.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Read more Lawsuit Challenges Legality of Trump\u2019s UFC Event at White House Next Week<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Days after being fired from the CBS News<\/em> program \u201c60 Minutes\u201d for speaking out against the dismissal of several top correspondents and declaring that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was \u201cbrought in to kill\u201d the show, veteran journalist Scott Pelley described in detail the right-wing former opinion columnist\u2019s efforts to push for political coverage that centered the White House\u2019s point of view \u2014 regardless of the facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a thumb on the scale for the president\u2019s version of events that I felt was a level of political influence that I had never seen in 37 years at CBS News<\/em>,\u201d Pelley told The New York Times\u2019 <\/em>Lulu Garcia-Navarro Sunday.<\/p>\n

Pelley was interviewed after he and his former colleagues spoke out against what fired correspondent Cecilia Vega called \u201ccensorship\u201d at the 58-year-old program since Weiss took the helm of CBS News<\/em> last year. Weiss was installed following a White House-approved merger of parent company Paramount and Skydance Media, owned by the son of President Donald Trump backer Larry Ellison.<\/p>\n

The new editor-in-chief, who first gained notoriety as a student at Columbia University when she led a campaign against pro-Palestinian professors and later railed against \u201ccancel culture,\u201d arrived at CBS<\/em> last fall with promises to promote \u201cjournalism that reports on the world as it actually is\u201d and that is \u201cfair, fearless, and factual.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in his interview with the Times<\/em>, Pelley expanded on his earlier accusation, made in a statement released last week after he was fired, that Weiss had demanded that he \u201cinject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story\u201d \u2014 revealing that the coverage in question dealt with the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis in January.<\/p>\n

Good was shot in her car by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after several officers gave her conflicting instructions, and footage of the shooting showed an agent approaching the front of her vehicle as she turned the wheel to the right. Pretti was shot by Customs and Border Protection agents in another incident, after he approached a woman one officer had thrown to the ground. Top administration officials accused both victims of being violent and called Good a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d while barring state officials from investigating the killings.<\/p>\n

Pelley said that before Weiss intervened in the coverage of the fatal shootings, he had pushed to use images \u201cin which we see the protesters acting aggressively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations,\u201d he told Garcia-Navarro. \u201cWe also included a picture of Alex Pretti before he was killed kicking out a taillight on a police car and made a point of saying, this is Alex Pretti and this is what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Pelley\u2019s push to get ahead of any criticism that \u201c60 Minutes\u201d was being biased against the agents or the Trump administration didn\u2019t stop Weiss from emailing the show\u2019s executive producer hours before the story was set to air, asking that producers \u201cmake the protesters look more violent\u201d and even promote a false claim about Good that was pushed by the White House.<\/p>\n

Pelley said the message from Weiss was, \u201cYou need to describe her as driving toward<\/em> the officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This is a devastating interview.<\/p>\n

Scott Pelley tells the NYT that Bari Weiss directly put a \u201cthumb on the scale\u201d for Trump over the killing of Renee Good.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s his explanation of exactly what happened. pic.twitter.com\/Kh56P1q7rM<\/p>\n

\u2014 Niall Stanage (@NiallStanage) June 7, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more UK to Sanction Israel Over Settlement Project That Would Cut West Bank in Half<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not what you see on the video,\u201d Pelley told Garcia-Navarro. \u201cOn the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Good\u2019s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelley said he refused to make the changes, and did not hear from Weiss about the piece after it aired. A CBS<\/em> spokesperson told the Times <\/em>that the suggestions Weiss had made \u201chad no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelley told Garcia-Navarro: \u201cMy impression at the time was that she was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the administration. Constantly looking out for the views of the president. We\u2019re reporting those views. There\u2019s nothing wrong with reporting those views, but it was never enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story on Pretti and Good came weeks after Weiss pushed the show\u2019s producers and correspondents to change a segment on Trump\u2019s deal with El Salvador under which hundreds of immigrants have been deported to the country\u2019s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center after being falsely accused of being gang members.<\/p>\n

Pelley\u2019s revelation about the exchange with Weiss was called \u201cdevastating\u201d by The Hill <\/em>reporter Niall Stanage, while the grassroots progressive group Our Revolution said Pelley had described \u201ca CBS News <\/em>editor demanding reporters change facts to match Trump\u2019s version of events to help justify the murder of a US citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat isn\u2019t news. It\u2019s state propaganda,\u201d said the group. \u201cBari Weiss is not a journalist. She is an asset of the Trump administration. She should be sued and removed and Paramount should answer for installing her.\u201d<\/p>\n

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the interference scott pelley describes is appalling but it\u2019s also humiliating for bari weiss. anyone who would change a story so that it validates what trump said rather than reality is not a journalist by any definition. even with what we already knew, this is astounding. pic.twitter.com\/FId30b4wPm<\/p>\n

\u2014 susie (@banikarim) June 7, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Scottish historian William Dalrymple added that Pelley\u2019s interview revealed Weiss as \u201ca major threat to truthful journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chaos at CBS <\/em>has intensified as Paramount Skydance has pushed for a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN<\/em> \u2014 raising alarm that the cable network could soon see a significant shift toward reporting that blatantly centers the White House\u2019s viewpoints.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Administration Urges Legal Aid Groups to Give Up Migrant Children\u2019s Sensitive Data<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBari Weiss is not a journalist. She is an asset of the Trump administration,\u201d said progressive group Our Revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nFired Journalist Says Bari Weiss Pushed to Air Propaganda on CBS News - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=382\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fired Journalist Says Bari Weiss Pushed to Air Propaganda on CBS News - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cBari Weiss is not a journalist. 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