The newly fashioned media company Paramount Skydance has acquired The Free Press, an internet information and commentary outlet co-founded by Bari Weiss, who will be part of CBS Information as editor-in-chief.
Weiss launched The Free Press in 2021 along with her spouse, Nellie Bowles, and her sister, Suzy Weiss. They’ve introduced the publication as a heterodox different to the legacy information media and a bulwark in opposition to “ideological narratives,” significantly on the political left.
The acquisition is considered one of Skydance chief David Ellison’s most vital early strikes to reshape the information unit at Paramount, which he acquired in a blockbuster $8 billion deal earlier this 12 months.
In searching for federal approval of the merger, Skydance vowed to embrace “various viewpoints” and characterize “the numerous ideological views of American viewers.” The corporate additionally pledged to set up an ombudsman at CBS Information.
“This partnership permits our ethos of fearless, unbiased journalism to achieve an unlimited, various, and influential viewers,” Weiss stated in a information launch. “We honor the extraordinary legacy of CBS Information by committing ourselves to a singular mission: constructing probably the most trusted information group of the twenty first Century.”
The Free Press has roughly 1.5 million subscribers on Substack, with greater than 170,000 of them paid, in keeping with Paramount Skydance. The Monetary Instances estimated that the publication generates greater than $15 million in annual subscription income. NBC Information has not independently verified that determine.
“Bari is a confirmed champion of unbiased, principled journalism, and I’m assured her entrepreneurial drive and editorial imaginative and prescient will invigorate CBS Information,” Ellison stated in a press release. “This transfer is a part of Paramount’s larger imaginative and prescient to modernize content material and the best way it connects — straight and passionately — to audiences world wide.”
The acquisition talks between Ellison and Weiss had been first reported in late June by Standing, a media business e-newsletter. Ellison is the son of billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, the co-founder of the software program agency Oracle.
Weiss co-founded The Free Press after quitting the opinion part of The New York Instances. In a resignation letter that was printed on-line, Weiss decried what she characterised because the “intolerant setting” on the newspaper.
The Free Press earned huge consideration in April 2024 after it printed an essay from Uri Berliner, a senior enterprise editor at Nationwide Public Radio who accused his employer of organizing round a “progressive worldview.” Berliner then resigned from NPR and joined The Free Press.
The publication’s common secure of columnists contains Tyler Cowen, an economist and podcaster; Matthew Continetti, the writer of a ebook in regards to the evolution of American conservatism; and Niall Ferguson, a British-American historian.
This can be a creating story. Please test again for updates.
