Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s12e26 Episode Script
Bari Weiss
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver, thank you so much
for joining us. It has been a busy week.
The government shutdown continued,
Peru ousted their president
and there was big news
regarding Gaza,
with the announcement
of a White House-brokered deal.
This morning, joy and relief
as a ceasefire is now in effect,
paving the way for the remaining
hostages to be released
early next week after being held
by Hamas for more than two years.
In Gaza, thousands seen
heading north back to Gaza City.
I hope this happiness will be fulfilled
and the ceasefire deal will last.
Yeah, there is a ceasefire
and that is very good news!
And I do know
the phrase "very good news"
is not one you tend to hear much
these days.
It's kind of like
the phrase "be kind, rewind"
or "starring Kevin Spacey",
or "Cuomosexual".
I thought
those days were gone forever.
And look, there are lots of details
to be worked out before you
can call this an actual peace deal,
whether Hamas will fully disarm,
whether Israel will completely
withdraw its troops
and what government
in the region will look like,
but that has not stopped Trump and
Republicans from taking a victory lap.
Before the ceasefire
was even official,
they were calling for Trump
to get the Nobel Peace Prize,
and once he didn't get it,
some suggested a weird workaround.
He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize,
and that's why I'm introducing
a resolution for assent of Congress
that will honor him
with the Nobel Peace Prize.
And if need be, we'll call for
a discharge petition on that.
I hope we can work with the speaker
and get it on the floor for a vote.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Congress doesn't pick Nobel winners.
That is absurd.
As we all know, the winners
are chosen in Norway
by a select committee of elves,
trolls, and one nokken,
the ancient horse spirit
that drowns children in rivers.
Ever wonder how Henry Kissinger
won the Nobel Peace Prize?
Yeah, you can thank
the nokken for that.
And look, there'll clearly be more
to say about this going forward,
but for now, we're gonna dive straight
in with our main story tonight,
which concerns CBS News,
one of the most trusted names
in American journalism.
It gave us Edward R. Murrow's
"Harvest of Shame",
Walter Cronkite delivering the news
of JFK's assassination,
and, of course, this.
In recent months,
a kind of underground fashion
has spread
among marijuana smokers.
It involves the fancy paper
used to roll the joints,
as they're sometimes called.
Cigarette papers manufactured
in this country, France,
Mexico, and Spain
now amount to big business,
mainly because of the boom in
grass, pot, tea, Mary Jane, reapers,
giggle grass, or marijuana.
Someone really did their research
into weed synonyms back then!
I just wish he'd kept going.
Giggle grass, bongweed,
power flower, magic cabbage,
Lucifer's lettuce, smokie dokie,
wizzle bizzle, and of course,
checking in at the Blitz-Carlton.
Specifically, we're gonna talk about
CBS's parent company, Paramount,
and its recent merger
with Skydance Media,
a deal largely powered by
the money of Larry Ellison,
one of the richest men on Earth,
and notable Trump supporter,
with the company now run
by his son, David,
a man with resting "just checked
in to the White Lotus" face.
There are already some worrying signs
regarding what this takeover
might mean for CBS News, in particular,
starting with the fact
that this guy's thrilled about it.
I think ABC is very bad.
I think NBC is very bad.
And CBS has a new owner,
so we have hope for CBS.
CBS has a great new owner,
my opinion.
Yeah, it is never a great sign
when Donald Trump,
seen here fresh from a trip to Sephora
to colormatch his hair to his skin,
loves a management decision
that you've made.
But he does have
a lot to be happy about.
In order to have Skydance to get its
merger approved by Carr's FCC,
it commits to "adopt measures
that can root out the bias"
"that has undermined trust
in the national news media."
One of those measures was installing
this former conservative think tank
CEO as CBS News's new ombudsman.
But this Monday,
Ellison took a much bigger step.
A major shift
in the landscape of TV news:
Paramount Skydance announcing
that they've made Bari Weiss
editor-in-chief of CBS News,
and acquired her news and commentary
organization, The Free Press.
She's a registered independent
who at one point called herself
"politically homeless",
unrepresented
by the two main U.S. parties.
Okay, first, "politically homeless"
sounds like how you'd describe
Rudy Giuliani's current fashion sense.
But it is true,
Paramount has bought The Free Press
for 150 million dollars,
and Bari Weiss, its co-founder, will
now be setting the editorial strategy,
vision, and focus for "CBS Mornings",
"CBS Evening News", "Face the Nation"
and even "60 Minutes".
Also, instead of reporting
to the president of CBS News,
Weiss will apparently report
directly to David Ellison.
And look, if you are not
familiar with Bari Weiss,
you should know, she's a proud
contrarian who, in public appearances,
will inevitably deliver
some version of this pitch.
I confound people
because I'm Jewish.
I've always thought I was liberal.
I'm gay. I'm married to a woman.
Like, that's my life.
You would think that I'm liberal and
I would just go along with the flow.
It's like, I look like them,
I think like them,
I eat at the same restaurants,
but I don't think all the same things.
And I'm not scared
to say when I disagree.
And I think that's really pissed
people off throughout my career.
Okay, first,
and least importantly,
the reboot of "Between Two Ferns"
looks terrible.
But that is her basic sell:
she's a liberal who's brave enough
to disagree with other liberals.
And along the way,
she's accumulated admirers
from Jeff Bezos to Meghan McCain,
from Amy Coney Barrett to Joe Rogan.
And if you're thinking,
"That's not a very ideologically
broad 'from' and 'to,'"
you're starting to catch on.
Because there are times
where she's a little more explicit
about what she believes,
like when she gave a speech
to the conservative Federalist Society,
featuring this fun joke.
I'm a gay woman
who is moderately prochoice.
I know that there are
some people in this room
who don't believe that my marriage
should have been legal.
And that's okay, because we're all
Americans who want lower taxes.
Good one!
And you can almost hear
that room unclench
after she basically says, "I know
you think I deserve fewer rights,"
"but don't worry, besties,
we're still chill."
And while that is obviously
framed as a joke,
it's also a setup to her saying,
in all seriousness,
"I am here because I know
that in the fight for the West,"
"who my allies really are,"
and she goes on to say,
among other things,
"The wave of so called progressive
prosecutors has proven to be"
"an immensely bad thing
for law and order."
I gotta say, for someone who's claimed
they are "politically homeless",
she sure seems awfully at home
in that room.
And look, this isn't the first time
an outsider billionaire
has tried thumbing the scale
of a news organization.
We've seen Jeff Bezos increasingly
meddle with the Washington Post
and Patrick Soon-Shiong
do the same at the L.A. Times,
but this feels like the most
sweeping change yet,
and at one of the few remaining
prestige names in news.
And if one person has suddenly
been handed this much power
over a whole news organization,
it is worth knowing
who that one person is.
So tonight,
let's take a look at Bari Weiss.
And let's start with the fact
that she's being given
editorial control of a massive
news organization,
even though she's never run
a TV network,
has no experience
directing television coverage,
and as one "60 Minutes" producer
pointed out, is not even a reporter.
That is true.
She didn't come up through
the news side of a newspaper,
but through the opinion pages,
which are a very different thing.
She really made a name for herself
after she was hired
by the op-ed page for
the New York Times in 2017.
And to hear her tell it,
it was for a pretty simple reason.
To put it bluntly,
I was brought in
along with Bret Stephens
from the Wall Street Journal
as a kind
of intellectual diversity hire.
My job explicitly was to bring in
voices that wouldn't otherwise
naturally appear in the New York Times,
either because other editors
wouldn't think to commission them
or the writers themselves
would think, you know,
"The New York Times
would never accept me."
Yeah, she was apparently tasked
with finding voices
that the Times op-ed page
would never accept.
Which is already a big claim,
given that, before she got there,
it published op-eds from,
and this is true,
Muammar Gaddafi
and Vladimir Putin.
If the Times had been around
in the 15th century,
I'm guessing it would've given
an opinion piece to Vlad the Impaler.
"Drinking the Blood of My
Enemies Isn't Disgusting,"
"It's Beautiful and Courageous."
In any case, Weiss started
getting attention at the Times
for writing provocative pieces
like this one
in which she argued that the left
had gone too far
in policing cultural appropriation,
and this one,
a largely sympathetic profile
of the "intellectual dark web",
a term that she popularized for people
like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro,
and this one suggesting
progressives were so focused on
labeling fellow Americans "fascists"
they missed opportunities
to call out real fascism,
which is just some
weapons-grade whataboutism.
That piece, by the way,
also got attention for the fact
that Weiss linked to posts from
the "official Antifa" Twitter account
that was actually a well-known hoax
site, which is pretty embarrassing.
You don't expect a Times writer
to fall for online hoaxes
like they're your 75-year-old aunt
on Facebook
who keeps
posting that message saying,
"I hereby state
that I do not give my permission"
"to use any of my personal data
or photos." That is fake, Linda!
Also, why would anybody
steal your photos?
You exclusively post pictures
of your elderly cat,
you're going to be fine!
But things came to a head in 2020,
after the Times ran this infamous
Tom Cotton op-ed
in which he argued that the U.S.
should send federal troops into cities
to tamp down protests
against police violence.
A lot of staffers at the Times
argued that it shouldn't have
published the editorial,
and Weiss wrote tweets about
a supposedly heated staff meeting,
characterizing it as a "civil war"
between the mostly young wokes
and the mostly
fortyand-up liberals.
That claim was strongly disputed
by others at the paper,
with one editor saying,
"I am in the same meeting that
Bari appears to be live-tweeting."
"This is inaccurate
in both characterizations."
"It's not a civil war,
it's an editorial conversation,"
"and it's not breaking down along
generational lines."
To be fair, it seems Bari Weiss does
have some reporting experience,
specifically, trying to report what
was happening in a meeting,
only to have her own coworkers say,
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Now, shortly after that,
she resigned,
posting a lengthy resignation
letter to her website,
claiming that her "forays into
wrongthink" had made her the subject
of "constant bullying by colleagues
who disagree with my views."
She now tells the story of that letter
in pretty self-mythologizing terms.
I thought to myself,
I have a choice to make.
I can stay. And in where I lived
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,
"Seinfeld" territory,
telling people you worked at
the New York Times meant something.
Got you a good table at a good
restaurant, among other things.
And it meant a lot to me,
because I felt like I made it.
Or I could leave, and I could
give up the prestige,
give up the platform,
have no plan for what I'm doing next,
but leave with my integrity.
So, I left with a resignation letter
sort of heard around the world.
It was my "Jerry Maguire" moment.
Okay.
Self-aggrandizing bullshit aside,
let's not reduce the Upper West Side
to just "Seinfeld" territory.
It's the site of many
other cultural touchstones,
like "You've Got Mail",
"Will & Grace",
and that time the night before
the Macy's parade
when balloon Spider-Man made an
absolute meal out of Uncle Sam's ass.
My point is: the Upper West Side
is more than just one thing.
Anyway, she quickly
launched her own publication,
first, as a Substack called
Common Sense,
and later as a full-blown media
company, The Free Press.
Its first motto was,
"Honest news for sane people",
which feels scientifically engineered
to trigger an eye roll.
Here she is not long after starting it,
making her pitch.
I want to create the media company
where people can go
for the best podcasts,
the best reporting,
the best analysis,
basically combining the blue-chip,
high quality of the old media landscape
with the punk energy
of the new political realignment.
First, it is pretty hard to claim
you've got "punk energy"
when you essentially spout conservative
talking points
while dressed like the front desk
manager at a Courtyard Marriott.
I, for one, do not trust
the punk bonafides
of anyone wearing
an Ann Taylor collarless silk blouse.
But, it turns out,
like most punk rock things,
The Free Press was quickly bankrolled
by reactionary billionaires,
like venture capitalists
Marc Andreessen and David Sacks.
And in the five years since, it's grown
to roughly 1.5 million readers,
although only around one in 10
actually pay to subscribe,
meaning it generates subscription
revenues of about 15 million a year.
Which isn't nothing. But I would argue,
also not quite enough
to justify someone
spending 150 million to acquire it,
as that is
a revenues-to-valuation ratio
that would make Mr. Wonderful
start vomiting blood.
Anyway, Weiss has since stocked
The Free Press with staffers
who, in some cases,
are quick to brag that, like her,
they are proud refugees
from the mainstream media.
I'm Lucy, I'm the social media
editor here at The Free Press.
And today, I'm going to ask
my coworkers
the moment they realized
they were Free Pressers.
Olivia, when did you realize
that you were a Free Presser?
on President Trump and they inserted
the word "racist" into the headline.
Okay, so just to be clear,
she was apparently reporting for NPR,
even though that bleep
makes it seem like she used to write
for an outlet called
"The Fuck-Hole Times" or something.
And the word "racist" was atop
a story of hers
about public response to Trump saying
these four members of Congress,
all American citizens, three
of whom were born in the U.S.,
should "go back" to
the countries they came from.
And I guess, if you're not ready
to call that "racist",
The Free Press
might be the place for you.
One of Bari Weiss's go-to lines
is that she's only interested
in "the truth".
In announcing her decision to go
to CBS this week, she said,
"America cannot thrive
without common facts,"
"common truths, and a common
reality." Which sounds great!
Watch her articulate The Free Press's
approach to arriving at "the truth"
and see if you can spot
a small problem with it.
The identity of our brand
is truth-seeking,
and our premise is you cannot
get to truth in an echo chamber.
The only way that you get to truth
is by sitting next to some,
this is what makes it so different from
any newsroom I've ever worked in.
Sitting next to someone
who disagrees with you,
who you still respect,
admire them and collaborate with them.
Yeah.
Maybe that is how you do it
as an opinion writer,
but that is not how you
get to truth as a reporter, is it?
You do that by leaving
the newsroom and reporting.
That's like saying the only way to hold
Henry Kissinger's skull in your hand
is by sitting next to someone
who disagrees with you.
No, that's not it. You do
that by leaving your desk,
breaking into Dick Cheney's house,
going into his master bathroom
and taking it out of its jar.
I'll be honest, there's not a ton of
hard journalism on The Free Press site.
There's really not much
of anything there.
There's usually just a handful
of new posts a day,
which can even include weird shit
like editorial cartoons
from David Mamet,
the playwright.
And if you're thinking, "I didn't
realize David Mamet could draw",
fun fact: he can't!
But don't worry, 'cause that hasn't
stopped him from producing cartoons
like this one that says, "What's
the best way to deal with detractors?"
with the answer being
a manual for tractors.
Or this one supposedly about
environmentalism that just says,
"Shoving eggs up
the tushies of chickens."
Or this one of an autobiography
by Kermit the Frog with a blurb
that says, "ribbeting", which
I'm worried might be too funny.
There are also a ton of first-person
clickbait essays with titles like:
"I Can Explain Why the Nazi Salute
Is Back."
"I Criticized BLM. Then I Was Fired."
"I Took Religion Out of Christmas.
I Regret It."
"I Want People to Have More Kids.
Does That Make Me Far-Right?"
"I Was Called an 'Inbred Swine'
at Princeton Last Night."
"I'm 17. And I'm Immunized
from Woke Politics."
"My Family Was Hunted by Nazis.
But I Was Fired for 'Defending Hitler.'"
"My Husband Wants to Be Cremated.
I'd Ignore His Dying Wish."
And "I Used to Hate Trump.
Now I'm a MAGA Lefty."
At this point, it feels like we're just
two weeks away from them posting
an article titled: "I Dressed My Dead
Wife Up as Hitler for Her Funeral"
"and Now Her Woke Family
Is Mad at Me."
And look, if you go
to the homepage of The Free Press,
it might not immediately read
as a particularly conservative outlet.
But once you start reading
its articles,
the pronounced theme
that starts to emerge
is "the left has gone too far".
Basically, whatever issue
you feel like that is true for,
Israel, campus politics,
DEI or police reform,
you'll find articles there
to reinforce that opinion.
And look, I am not saying
the left never goes too far
or that it's immune
from criticism at all.
But it can sometimes feel
like The Free Press's conclusions
can get out
ahead of its evidence.
Which brings us to the fact
that some of its pieces
can be pretty poorly fact-checked
and in ways that feel important.
And let's look at three key examples.
Take one of its biggest splashes,
this article:
"I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids.
Now I'm Blowing the Whistle."
It's an account by Jamie Reed,
who'd worked as a caseworker
at the Washington University
Transgender Center.
Her piece claims that the clinic
was harming patients
by, among other things,
routinely approving adolescents
for medical transitions without
proper medical health assessments,
calling its work "morally
and medically appalling."
Now, that story, understandably,
got a ton of attention,
including from public officials,
which prompted Weiss to go
on Megyn Kelly's podcast
to take something of a victory lap.
The day after the piece published,
I'd never seen such a sort of rapid
reaction to a piece of journalism.
Missouri's attorney general announced
an investigation into the gender clinic.
The reason that this story
was especially important
and gratifying for us
to have substantiated
was because it's exactly the kind
of story that we exist to pursue.
It's exactly kind of morally
knotty story
in which journalists
avoid pursuing it
because they know they will be punished
or smeared for doing so.
That is why The Free Press exists.
That is an exceptional
amount of selfcongratulation,
and the bar was already set
at "the 'Jerry Maguire' moment
heard around the world".
But she is right.
The state AG apparently found that
article, to borrow a term, "ribbeting",
because they soon announced
an investigation into the center
and it ultimately stopped
treating minors,
with Reed's claims even being used
to help justify a statewide ban
on gender-affirming care for them.
So, it did have real impact.
Which is what makes it so awkward
that, when Washington University
conducted its own investigation,
they found that "allegations
of substandard care"
"causing adverse outcomes for patients
at the Center were unsubstantiated."
And when other outlets
reported the story out,
again and again, their findings did not
match what The Free Press published.
For instance,
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
found dozens of former patients and
parents at the clinic who told them
their experiences sharply contradicted
the examples supplied by Reed.
NBC spent two months reaching out
to nearly 40 people
associated with the center,
and got the same result,
with patients saying the care received
was thorough and slow.
And the Missouri Independent
found parents who told them
any treatments their kids received
were only undertaken
after long consultations with doctors
and mental health professionals,
and often, patients were told
they needed to wait for years.
In fact, at worst, follow-up
reporting showed that,
as more patients sought care,
the clinic became overwhelmed,
as its employees grappled with how
best to help patients.
And to be fair, the Times did find some
former patients who had complaints,
including one
who'd since detransitioned,
and felt there'd been a lack of care
and consideration from the center.
But even that article, which
Weiss claimed vindicated their story,
said it's clear the clinic
benefited many adolescents,
with patients saying their experiences
were overwhelmingly positive.
And the thing is,
some of Reed's marquee examples
just don't hold up
on further inspection.
For instance, she cited the harrowing
story of a patient she claimed suffered
liver toxicity from medication
she was prescribed at the center,
and whose mother was so distraught,
she sent a message saying
they were lucky her family
was not the type to sue.
That sounds pretty striking.
But when the Times
spoke with that family,
they were stunned to read this
characterization of their case,
saying she only experienced liver
problems after getting Covid
and taking another drug
with possible liver side effects.
As for threatening a lawsuit, they
were adamant that never happened,
to the point they went on
local news to refute the whole story.
It's not just not true,
but it's a lie.
We're in shadow,
but we're not hiding.
There's lies, and people have paid for
that in the transgender community.
Did you ever say that
you were going to sue the clinic
or ever allude
to suing the clinic?
No. Nope.
The parents' message goes on to say
they don't regret any decision
and would never have denied their
daughter these life-saving treatments.
We still have no regrets.
It's blatant exploitation
of my daughter's medical situation.
Yeah, that mother felt
that the story was
"blatant exploitation
of her daughter's medical situation",
or as I guess
as Bari would describe it,
"harnessing the punk energy
of the new political realignment."
And look, I get her frustration
at seeing misinformation about
her daughter go far and wide.
In fact, when we reached out
to that mother, she told us,
"I've been fighting for the truth about
that Free Press article for a while."
And if you're getting the sense
that The Free Press isn't about to let
whatever fact-checking they do
get in the way
of the story they want to tell you,
that also extends to some
of the original reporting they do.
Take this piece they published
last year about Austin,
claiming crime had soared there, under
a progressive DA named Jose Garza.
It prominently featured a billionaire
named Daniel Lubetzky,
the founder of Kind Snacks, who'd
moved to Austin a few years earlier
and was supporting a primary campaign
to elect a more moderate DA.
The story claimed
that Austin's "crime wave"
was leading many of its
most buzzed-about new residents,
and some of its wealthiest, to worry
it might become the next San Francisco.
But as local news there pointed out,
there was a pretty big hole
in that piece's argument.
But this article from
a website called The Free Press,
one of the first lines, hopefully we can
pop it up right here on the screen.
One of the first lines, the article
claims crime in Austin has soared
under a progressive
district attorney.
This morning, the numbers tell us
that that is just not the case.
We looked at crime reporting data
from Austin police.
So, in December of 2020,
before Jose Garza took over,
20.500 crimes against people were
committed throughout the entire year.
A few years later, in 2023, with
Garza as DA for a couple of years,
the number was 2.000 fewer
than in the same timeframe.
Yeah, it's true.
And it is kind of striking
that even local news was like,
"Girl, calm down."
Because the only thing they usually
love more than overhyping crime
is maybe,
maybe dogs running five-Ks.
"This just in: woof, woof,
pant, pant, good boy goes fast!"
And finally, there's this piece
The Free Press recently posted
about media coverage
of young people starving in Gaza.
It concerned photos that it said
had "helped convince a growing
number of Americans"
"that Israel has induced famine and
is committing war crimes in Gaza."
There is a lot wrong
with this article.
For one, it questions how starvation
and famine have been measured,
by claiming the IPC,
the international body
that helps monitor
food insecurity and malnutrition,
has "quietly changed
its methodology in Gaza,"
"essentially redefining
the criteria for determining a famine."
But that is false.
Very basically,
the IPC has multiple metrics for
measuring malnutrition in children,
one involves measuring
height and weight,
another involves arm circumference.
Now, because arm circumference
only requires a tape measure,
it's far easier to obtain,
especially in a place like a war zone.
So, in Gaza, that is what
they started using,
because of, you know,
all of this shit happening.
And those methods were not,
in fact, quietly introduced,
as The Free Press suggested,
but have been accepted since 2019,
and used in famine classifications
in South Sudan and Sudan.
But it gets even grosser.
Because the piece tries to provide
extra "context" for some pictures
of starving children.
And here is one of its writers,
the one who used to work
for The Fuck-Hole Times,
summing her work up.
You've probably seen these photos of
skeletal kids in Gaza on front pages,
all over social media,
even in a UNICEF ad.
They've become
the symbols of famine.
We decided to look into these photos
and the stories behind them.
And what we found is that,
in case after case,
these kids were sick,
but not just with malnutrition.
In every instance, they were suffering
with other conditions or illnesses
like cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy
and even traumatic head injuries.
Now, their article claims
all those kids were
"already facing grave situations"
"because of their health, irrespective
of any third-party action."
But a few things. First, the traumatic
head injury she mentioned
was, as their article points out,
caused by an Israeli shell explosion,
which feels like a pretty
significant third-party action.
Second, it's not like the 12 photos
they chose to look into
are the only ones illustrating
stories about famine in Gaza.
And as for the notion
that this is something that
the mainstream media was ignoring,
there is a key problem
with that claim, too.
And see if you can spot it,
as she walks through their
in-depth journalistic process.
We did something so simple
it's shocking that no other
journalist bothered to do it.
So, this is how
we figured this out.
Let's just take this example
of Najwa Hussein Hajjaj
who appeared in CNN as suffering
from severe malnutrition in Gaza City.
So, all we did
is we took her name,
we went to Google Translate, we
took the Arabic spelling of her name,
put that into Google,
and pulled up a lot of local clips
in which her parents were talking
about what was really going on.
And what we learned is that
she has an esophagus condition,
which is something that was
even reported in English media,
including the New York Times.
That is a quite different and
more nuanced story
than the assumption that Israel wants
her dead and they're starving her.
Okay, so if no other journalist
bothered to do it
but it was "even reported
in the New York Times",
that sure suggests a journalist
very much did bother to do it.
But also,
if we're talking about context,
when it comes to the child
she mentioned there,
they quote from
an Arabic news outlet.
Here is the whole section
about her from that outlet.
Here's the translation, and here's
the quote The Free Press pulled,
mentioning her ailments since birth,
including vomiting while eating.
But it's worth noting,
the sentence before says,
"Her condition worsens each day
without access to protein"
"and vitamin-rich foods
that are needed for her treatment."
And the line after reads, "During
the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip,"
"her condition deteriorated,
and she developed malnutrition"
"because the right food for her
was simply unavailable."
And while I would love
to keep splitting hairs
on whether a country starving kids
is better or worse
if those kids are already sick,
let's just table that discussion
for when I see you in hell.
And that is not the only bit of
cherry-picking in that piece,
which features
a lot of young people
with, yes,
pre-existing conditions or ailments,
but which were made significantly
worse when they couldn't access food.
And to be clear, as the president
of Refugees International wrote,
"People with underlying conditions
suffer first when hunger sets in",
adding, "That vulnerability
is not a rebuttal of famine,"
"it is a feature of how
famine kills and who it hits first."
And it is kind of weird that
nobody at The Free Press thought
to include that sort
of important context,
given that they are famously proud
of their ability to Google shit.
And you should also know, that
piece circulated far and wide
among those seeking to
downplay the suffering in Gaza,
including Bibi Netanyahu himself,
who shared that video on his social
media with the caption "Facts matter".
Which is terrible for multiple
reasons, including,
if Netanyahu
ever shared one of our stories,
I think I'd burn this place
to the fucking ground!
And, by the way, any story too!
Even if it was the one
where I ate the ass
of a cake bear that looks like me.
If he retweeted that with
the comment, "Facts matter",
you would never hear from us
ever again!
And look,
everything I've shown you so far
should comfortably be enough
to make you question
the wisdom of putting Bari Weiss
in charge of CBS News
but I still haven't even gotten
to her weirdest venture,
which lays out her priorities
and worldview pretty clearly.
And that is the fact that Bari Weiss
has started her own university.
Specifically, she's co-founded
the University of Austin, in Texas,
and it is exactly what you'd expect.
Here is one
of the school's promo videos.
If you're wondering
why the museums you love
and the publishing houses you love
and the newspapers you used to trust,
if you want to understand
why they are hollowed out,
you have to look
at the nucleation point for this,
and that is the university.
The premise is that America
is not only not great,
but evil to the core and rotten
and need to be torn down.
The answer to that is simply no.
Okay, there are so many things
wrong with that,
from the firm "no" to a bullshit
straw man argument, to the claim
"we all have publishing houses
we love that've been hollowed out",
to the pretentiousness of the phrase
"nucleation point",
which sounds more like the title of
a straight-to-streaming action flop,
starring Steven Seagal.
Now, UATX is currently unaccredited.
And while Weiss proudly posted
this image of students
on the school's first day,
I should note that while
that building does look impressive,
that is because
it's the Texas State Capitol.
The actual school is housed
on a couple floors of a former
department store in downtown Austin,
which is pretty unusual.
You don't generally expect a college
to suddenly pop up
in an abandoned store,
like it's a Spirit fucking Halloween.
But while the school may not
have a traditional campus,
it does have a white marble bust
of Bari Weiss
prominently displayed
in one of its common areas.
It was apparently donated
by Joe Lonsdale,
the billionaire co-founder
of the defense contractor Palantir.
He's one of several billionaire
donors to the school,
along with Daniel Lubetzky,
the nut-bar billionaire
from that Austin "crime wave" story,
and Harlan Crow, famously,
Clarence Thomas' benefactor.
So, the school's already got
a lot of red flags on it,
even before you get
to what's being taught in there.
Its Substack,
because of course it has one,
brags that it's a place where,
"Students quote Joseph Conrad
and Joe Rogan in the same breath."
And one of its big selling points
is that its students adhere
to what's called "the Chatham House
rule", which essentially requires
all classroom conversations
be conducted off-the-record.
I'll let one of the school's
professors explain.
If someone says something
unacceptable to people
or shocking or problematic,
you can't run out and say,
"Bobby said something racist,"
or "Susie actually is a Zionist",
you cannot do this.
And what that means is that
students don't have to conform.
They can actually say
what they think.
That's good! Well, in the spirit
of saying what we think, I'll go first:
your vibe is all the way off.
You look like Guillermo del Toro
if he only directed episodes
of "Yellowstone",
and you enunciate like
you're the third Crane brother
that Frasier and Niles
never talk about.
And you can't tell anyone I said
that, Chatham House rule!
If you're wondering what sort of
topics might require a rule like that,
apparently, one of their first
offerings were summer classes
called the "Forbidden Courses",
which promised to inquire honestly
into today's most vexing questions,
which they then illustrated
with this photo,
of an instructor seeming to point out
hot-button statements for debate.
There it is!
"Non-Black people
cannot use the N-word."
And suddenly, that Chatham House rule
makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it?
Although, any Black college student
will tell you,
you don't need to set up
a whole university
to find out which college kids
are comfortable using the N-word,
when all it takes is a couple rum
and Cokes
and Lil Wayne to come up
on shuffle.
It is no mystery what sort of
person starts a university like this.
But in case there were
any doubt at all,
listen to Bari Weiss, not long after
campus protests started over Gaza,
spell out as clearly as possible
what she wanted to see happen.
Above all, starting today,
we need to uproot, root and branch,
the ideology
that has supplanted truth
at the core
of American higher education.
And that ideology
goes by the name DEI.
Some call it wokeness,
or anti-racism, or progressivism,
or safety-ism, or critical social
justice, or identity Marxism.
Whatever term you use,
what is clear is that this worldview
has gained power in the world in
a conceptual instrument called DEI.
Yeah, and that itself
is a whole worldview right there.
"You know this DEI thing
that we've been trying,"
"where we acknowledge not everyone's
getting equal access to opportunity?"
"Let's just roll back the clock
on that, shall we?"
"Also, let's be anti-anti-racist,"
"and not think too much
about what that might make us."
DEI is actually one
of her favorite targets.
She's also said it's "undermining
America," is "about arrogating power"
and that it "demonizes hard work,
merit, family,"
"and the dignity of the individual."
It is not new, or indeed interesting,
that a commentator would say that.
There are plenty of them out there.
And there'll always be an audience
for those who
want to make that case.
We wouldn't even have done this story
were it not for the fact
that Bari Weiss has just been named
editor-in-chief of CBS News.
And that feels different.
Because there are many opinion-heavy
outlets out there,
from left to right, and with low
to high editorial standards.
This show is, among other things,
an opinion outlet,
and while our staff works
incredibly hard to research stories
before we write something,
and check our facts afterwards,
we're also not the news.
And I wouldn't want anyone
who led a pure opinion outlet,
not even one
that I happen to agree with,
to suddenly be running CBS News.
But it is especially alarming
to have someone doing it
who has spent years putting out
work that, in my opinion,
is, at best, irresponsible,
and at worst, deeply misleading.
And look, it is not just about
Bari Weiss being at CBS.
It's about the fact that CBS
is now under the control
of someone who thinks that she,
and her editorial sensibility,
make her a good fit for the job,
and who, incidentally,
is reportedly preparing a bid for
Warner Brothers Discovery,
Which isn't ideal!
Although, I've got to say,
if what he likes about Bari
is that she forces him
to have hard conversations
that get a bit uncomfortable,
maybe he'll like this!
But, the thing is,
it's not just about Ellison, either.
Again, he's just the latest
in a string of billionaires
who've taken over
our journalistic institutions
from the Washington Post
to the L.A. Times,
and started making
worrying changes.
And whatever complaints I might've
had with their coverage before,
and I have had plenty, my solution
would never have been this.
Because when these
takeovers get announced,
it's easy to think, "Well,
thank goodness there are other outlets"
"that aren't under some
billionaire's influence."
And that is true, because there is
always another one,
until there suddenly isn't.
And I admit, I don't know
what is gonna happen next.
Maybe Bari Weiss will completely
reshape CBS News.
Maybe she'll flame out
and write another resignation letter
heard around the world.
But it is worth keeping an eye out
for subtle changes there.
Because while I'm sure
many of CBS's good journalists
will continue to do great work,
if you start seeing people resigning,
or getting fired,
or you start seeing stories
that seem "off" in some way,
especially if it involves
"the left going too far"
on a topic Bari Weiss cares about,
it's worth asking yourself
why that might be.
Because, unfortunately,
the much bigger answer
might be that a billionaire has
chosen to inject contrarian,
right-leaning opinion journalism
into an American icon,
even if, much like that
Thanksgiving Day Spider-Man,
it has absolutely no fucking business
being there.
And now, this.
And Now: People on TV Analyze
Taylor Swift's Song "Wood".
Just for folks at home, you mentioned
the song that you said is dirty.
- Wood.
There you go. Do the math.
- That "Wood" song?
- The "Wood" song.
Let's just say
it's a love letter to Travis.
Well, you can call it that, too.
The redwood song?
She is having a great time!
Excellent time.
Let's just say,
Taylor Swift is a very happy woman.
I'll just say that.
- It's about wood?
- It's about somebody's wood.
Yeah, it's definitely
not about a two-by-four.
She doesn't have to knock
on wood, as people do.
Somebody's knocking the wood.
She doesn't have to hope or knock
on wood that it's gonna work out.
She'd be with him forever.
And then she mentioned
that his manhood
is the size of a tree.
It's a song that references
Travis Kelce's penis.
That's our show,
thanks so much for watching.
We are off next week,
back October 26th, good night!
I'm John Oliver, thank you so much
for joining us. It has been a busy week.
The government shutdown continued,
Peru ousted their president
and there was big news
regarding Gaza,
with the announcement
of a White House-brokered deal.
This morning, joy and relief
as a ceasefire is now in effect,
paving the way for the remaining
hostages to be released
early next week after being held
by Hamas for more than two years.
In Gaza, thousands seen
heading north back to Gaza City.
I hope this happiness will be fulfilled
and the ceasefire deal will last.
Yeah, there is a ceasefire
and that is very good news!
And I do know
the phrase "very good news"
is not one you tend to hear much
these days.
It's kind of like
the phrase "be kind, rewind"
or "starring Kevin Spacey",
or "Cuomosexual".
I thought
those days were gone forever.
And look, there are lots of details
to be worked out before you
can call this an actual peace deal,
whether Hamas will fully disarm,
whether Israel will completely
withdraw its troops
and what government
in the region will look like,
but that has not stopped Trump and
Republicans from taking a victory lap.
Before the ceasefire
was even official,
they were calling for Trump
to get the Nobel Peace Prize,
and once he didn't get it,
some suggested a weird workaround.
He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize,
and that's why I'm introducing
a resolution for assent of Congress
that will honor him
with the Nobel Peace Prize.
And if need be, we'll call for
a discharge petition on that.
I hope we can work with the speaker
and get it on the floor for a vote.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Congress doesn't pick Nobel winners.
That is absurd.
As we all know, the winners
are chosen in Norway
by a select committee of elves,
trolls, and one nokken,
the ancient horse spirit
that drowns children in rivers.
Ever wonder how Henry Kissinger
won the Nobel Peace Prize?
Yeah, you can thank
the nokken for that.
And look, there'll clearly be more
to say about this going forward,
but for now, we're gonna dive straight
in with our main story tonight,
which concerns CBS News,
one of the most trusted names
in American journalism.
It gave us Edward R. Murrow's
"Harvest of Shame",
Walter Cronkite delivering the news
of JFK's assassination,
and, of course, this.
In recent months,
a kind of underground fashion
has spread
among marijuana smokers.
It involves the fancy paper
used to roll the joints,
as they're sometimes called.
Cigarette papers manufactured
in this country, France,
Mexico, and Spain
now amount to big business,
mainly because of the boom in
grass, pot, tea, Mary Jane, reapers,
giggle grass, or marijuana.
Someone really did their research
into weed synonyms back then!
I just wish he'd kept going.
Giggle grass, bongweed,
power flower, magic cabbage,
Lucifer's lettuce, smokie dokie,
wizzle bizzle, and of course,
checking in at the Blitz-Carlton.
Specifically, we're gonna talk about
CBS's parent company, Paramount,
and its recent merger
with Skydance Media,
a deal largely powered by
the money of Larry Ellison,
one of the richest men on Earth,
and notable Trump supporter,
with the company now run
by his son, David,
a man with resting "just checked
in to the White Lotus" face.
There are already some worrying signs
regarding what this takeover
might mean for CBS News, in particular,
starting with the fact
that this guy's thrilled about it.
I think ABC is very bad.
I think NBC is very bad.
And CBS has a new owner,
so we have hope for CBS.
CBS has a great new owner,
my opinion.
Yeah, it is never a great sign
when Donald Trump,
seen here fresh from a trip to Sephora
to colormatch his hair to his skin,
loves a management decision
that you've made.
But he does have
a lot to be happy about.
In order to have Skydance to get its
merger approved by Carr's FCC,
it commits to "adopt measures
that can root out the bias"
"that has undermined trust
in the national news media."
One of those measures was installing
this former conservative think tank
CEO as CBS News's new ombudsman.
But this Monday,
Ellison took a much bigger step.
A major shift
in the landscape of TV news:
Paramount Skydance announcing
that they've made Bari Weiss
editor-in-chief of CBS News,
and acquired her news and commentary
organization, The Free Press.
She's a registered independent
who at one point called herself
"politically homeless",
unrepresented
by the two main U.S. parties.
Okay, first, "politically homeless"
sounds like how you'd describe
Rudy Giuliani's current fashion sense.
But it is true,
Paramount has bought The Free Press
for 150 million dollars,
and Bari Weiss, its co-founder, will
now be setting the editorial strategy,
vision, and focus for "CBS Mornings",
"CBS Evening News", "Face the Nation"
and even "60 Minutes".
Also, instead of reporting
to the president of CBS News,
Weiss will apparently report
directly to David Ellison.
And look, if you are not
familiar with Bari Weiss,
you should know, she's a proud
contrarian who, in public appearances,
will inevitably deliver
some version of this pitch.
I confound people
because I'm Jewish.
I've always thought I was liberal.
I'm gay. I'm married to a woman.
Like, that's my life.
You would think that I'm liberal and
I would just go along with the flow.
It's like, I look like them,
I think like them,
I eat at the same restaurants,
but I don't think all the same things.
And I'm not scared
to say when I disagree.
And I think that's really pissed
people off throughout my career.
Okay, first,
and least importantly,
the reboot of "Between Two Ferns"
looks terrible.
But that is her basic sell:
she's a liberal who's brave enough
to disagree with other liberals.
And along the way,
she's accumulated admirers
from Jeff Bezos to Meghan McCain,
from Amy Coney Barrett to Joe Rogan.
And if you're thinking,
"That's not a very ideologically
broad 'from' and 'to,'"
you're starting to catch on.
Because there are times
where she's a little more explicit
about what she believes,
like when she gave a speech
to the conservative Federalist Society,
featuring this fun joke.
I'm a gay woman
who is moderately prochoice.
I know that there are
some people in this room
who don't believe that my marriage
should have been legal.
And that's okay, because we're all
Americans who want lower taxes.
Good one!
And you can almost hear
that room unclench
after she basically says, "I know
you think I deserve fewer rights,"
"but don't worry, besties,
we're still chill."
And while that is obviously
framed as a joke,
it's also a setup to her saying,
in all seriousness,
"I am here because I know
that in the fight for the West,"
"who my allies really are,"
and she goes on to say,
among other things,
"The wave of so called progressive
prosecutors has proven to be"
"an immensely bad thing
for law and order."
I gotta say, for someone who's claimed
they are "politically homeless",
she sure seems awfully at home
in that room.
And look, this isn't the first time
an outsider billionaire
has tried thumbing the scale
of a news organization.
We've seen Jeff Bezos increasingly
meddle with the Washington Post
and Patrick Soon-Shiong
do the same at the L.A. Times,
but this feels like the most
sweeping change yet,
and at one of the few remaining
prestige names in news.
And if one person has suddenly
been handed this much power
over a whole news organization,
it is worth knowing
who that one person is.
So tonight,
let's take a look at Bari Weiss.
And let's start with the fact
that she's being given
editorial control of a massive
news organization,
even though she's never run
a TV network,
has no experience
directing television coverage,
and as one "60 Minutes" producer
pointed out, is not even a reporter.
That is true.
She didn't come up through
the news side of a newspaper,
but through the opinion pages,
which are a very different thing.
She really made a name for herself
after she was hired
by the op-ed page for
the New York Times in 2017.
And to hear her tell it,
it was for a pretty simple reason.
To put it bluntly,
I was brought in
along with Bret Stephens
from the Wall Street Journal
as a kind
of intellectual diversity hire.
My job explicitly was to bring in
voices that wouldn't otherwise
naturally appear in the New York Times,
either because other editors
wouldn't think to commission them
or the writers themselves
would think, you know,
"The New York Times
would never accept me."
Yeah, she was apparently tasked
with finding voices
that the Times op-ed page
would never accept.
Which is already a big claim,
given that, before she got there,
it published op-eds from,
and this is true,
Muammar Gaddafi
and Vladimir Putin.
If the Times had been around
in the 15th century,
I'm guessing it would've given
an opinion piece to Vlad the Impaler.
"Drinking the Blood of My
Enemies Isn't Disgusting,"
"It's Beautiful and Courageous."
In any case, Weiss started
getting attention at the Times
for writing provocative pieces
like this one
in which she argued that the left
had gone too far
in policing cultural appropriation,
and this one,
a largely sympathetic profile
of the "intellectual dark web",
a term that she popularized for people
like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro,
and this one suggesting
progressives were so focused on
labeling fellow Americans "fascists"
they missed opportunities
to call out real fascism,
which is just some
weapons-grade whataboutism.
That piece, by the way,
also got attention for the fact
that Weiss linked to posts from
the "official Antifa" Twitter account
that was actually a well-known hoax
site, which is pretty embarrassing.
You don't expect a Times writer
to fall for online hoaxes
like they're your 75-year-old aunt
on Facebook
who keeps
posting that message saying,
"I hereby state
that I do not give my permission"
"to use any of my personal data
or photos." That is fake, Linda!
Also, why would anybody
steal your photos?
You exclusively post pictures
of your elderly cat,
you're going to be fine!
But things came to a head in 2020,
after the Times ran this infamous
Tom Cotton op-ed
in which he argued that the U.S.
should send federal troops into cities
to tamp down protests
against police violence.
A lot of staffers at the Times
argued that it shouldn't have
published the editorial,
and Weiss wrote tweets about
a supposedly heated staff meeting,
characterizing it as a "civil war"
between the mostly young wokes
and the mostly
fortyand-up liberals.
That claim was strongly disputed
by others at the paper,
with one editor saying,
"I am in the same meeting that
Bari appears to be live-tweeting."
"This is inaccurate
in both characterizations."
"It's not a civil war,
it's an editorial conversation,"
"and it's not breaking down along
generational lines."
To be fair, it seems Bari Weiss does
have some reporting experience,
specifically, trying to report what
was happening in a meeting,
only to have her own coworkers say,
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
Now, shortly after that,
she resigned,
posting a lengthy resignation
letter to her website,
claiming that her "forays into
wrongthink" had made her the subject
of "constant bullying by colleagues
who disagree with my views."
She now tells the story of that letter
in pretty self-mythologizing terms.
I thought to myself,
I have a choice to make.
I can stay. And in where I lived
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan,
"Seinfeld" territory,
telling people you worked at
the New York Times meant something.
Got you a good table at a good
restaurant, among other things.
And it meant a lot to me,
because I felt like I made it.
Or I could leave, and I could
give up the prestige,
give up the platform,
have no plan for what I'm doing next,
but leave with my integrity.
So, I left with a resignation letter
sort of heard around the world.
It was my "Jerry Maguire" moment.
Okay.
Self-aggrandizing bullshit aside,
let's not reduce the Upper West Side
to just "Seinfeld" territory.
It's the site of many
other cultural touchstones,
like "You've Got Mail",
"Will & Grace",
and that time the night before
the Macy's parade
when balloon Spider-Man made an
absolute meal out of Uncle Sam's ass.
My point is: the Upper West Side
is more than just one thing.
Anyway, she quickly
launched her own publication,
first, as a Substack called
Common Sense,
and later as a full-blown media
company, The Free Press.
Its first motto was,
"Honest news for sane people",
which feels scientifically engineered
to trigger an eye roll.
Here she is not long after starting it,
making her pitch.
I want to create the media company
where people can go
for the best podcasts,
the best reporting,
the best analysis,
basically combining the blue-chip,
high quality of the old media landscape
with the punk energy
of the new political realignment.
First, it is pretty hard to claim
you've got "punk energy"
when you essentially spout conservative
talking points
while dressed like the front desk
manager at a Courtyard Marriott.
I, for one, do not trust
the punk bonafides
of anyone wearing
an Ann Taylor collarless silk blouse.
But, it turns out,
like most punk rock things,
The Free Press was quickly bankrolled
by reactionary billionaires,
like venture capitalists
Marc Andreessen and David Sacks.
And in the five years since, it's grown
to roughly 1.5 million readers,
although only around one in 10
actually pay to subscribe,
meaning it generates subscription
revenues of about 15 million a year.
Which isn't nothing. But I would argue,
also not quite enough
to justify someone
spending 150 million to acquire it,
as that is
a revenues-to-valuation ratio
that would make Mr. Wonderful
start vomiting blood.
Anyway, Weiss has since stocked
The Free Press with staffers
who, in some cases,
are quick to brag that, like her,
they are proud refugees
from the mainstream media.
I'm Lucy, I'm the social media
editor here at The Free Press.
And today, I'm going to ask
my coworkers
the moment they realized
they were Free Pressers.
Olivia, when did you realize
that you were a Free Presser?
on President Trump and they inserted
the word "racist" into the headline.
Okay, so just to be clear,
she was apparently reporting for NPR,
even though that bleep
makes it seem like she used to write
for an outlet called
"The Fuck-Hole Times" or something.
And the word "racist" was atop
a story of hers
about public response to Trump saying
these four members of Congress,
all American citizens, three
of whom were born in the U.S.,
should "go back" to
the countries they came from.
And I guess, if you're not ready
to call that "racist",
The Free Press
might be the place for you.
One of Bari Weiss's go-to lines
is that she's only interested
in "the truth".
In announcing her decision to go
to CBS this week, she said,
"America cannot thrive
without common facts,"
"common truths, and a common
reality." Which sounds great!
Watch her articulate The Free Press's
approach to arriving at "the truth"
and see if you can spot
a small problem with it.
The identity of our brand
is truth-seeking,
and our premise is you cannot
get to truth in an echo chamber.
The only way that you get to truth
is by sitting next to some,
this is what makes it so different from
any newsroom I've ever worked in.
Sitting next to someone
who disagrees with you,
who you still respect,
admire them and collaborate with them.
Yeah.
Maybe that is how you do it
as an opinion writer,
but that is not how you
get to truth as a reporter, is it?
You do that by leaving
the newsroom and reporting.
That's like saying the only way to hold
Henry Kissinger's skull in your hand
is by sitting next to someone
who disagrees with you.
No, that's not it. You do
that by leaving your desk,
breaking into Dick Cheney's house,
going into his master bathroom
and taking it out of its jar.
I'll be honest, there's not a ton of
hard journalism on The Free Press site.
There's really not much
of anything there.
There's usually just a handful
of new posts a day,
which can even include weird shit
like editorial cartoons
from David Mamet,
the playwright.
And if you're thinking, "I didn't
realize David Mamet could draw",
fun fact: he can't!
But don't worry, 'cause that hasn't
stopped him from producing cartoons
like this one that says, "What's
the best way to deal with detractors?"
with the answer being
a manual for tractors.
Or this one supposedly about
environmentalism that just says,
"Shoving eggs up
the tushies of chickens."
Or this one of an autobiography
by Kermit the Frog with a blurb
that says, "ribbeting", which
I'm worried might be too funny.
There are also a ton of first-person
clickbait essays with titles like:
"I Can Explain Why the Nazi Salute
Is Back."
"I Criticized BLM. Then I Was Fired."
"I Took Religion Out of Christmas.
I Regret It."
"I Want People to Have More Kids.
Does That Make Me Far-Right?"
"I Was Called an 'Inbred Swine'
at Princeton Last Night."
"I'm 17. And I'm Immunized
from Woke Politics."
"My Family Was Hunted by Nazis.
But I Was Fired for 'Defending Hitler.'"
"My Husband Wants to Be Cremated.
I'd Ignore His Dying Wish."
And "I Used to Hate Trump.
Now I'm a MAGA Lefty."
At this point, it feels like we're just
two weeks away from them posting
an article titled: "I Dressed My Dead
Wife Up as Hitler for Her Funeral"
"and Now Her Woke Family
Is Mad at Me."
And look, if you go
to the homepage of The Free Press,
it might not immediately read
as a particularly conservative outlet.
But once you start reading
its articles,
the pronounced theme
that starts to emerge
is "the left has gone too far".
Basically, whatever issue
you feel like that is true for,
Israel, campus politics,
DEI or police reform,
you'll find articles there
to reinforce that opinion.
And look, I am not saying
the left never goes too far
or that it's immune
from criticism at all.
But it can sometimes feel
like The Free Press's conclusions
can get out
ahead of its evidence.
Which brings us to the fact
that some of its pieces
can be pretty poorly fact-checked
and in ways that feel important.
And let's look at three key examples.
Take one of its biggest splashes,
this article:
"I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids.
Now I'm Blowing the Whistle."
It's an account by Jamie Reed,
who'd worked as a caseworker
at the Washington University
Transgender Center.
Her piece claims that the clinic
was harming patients
by, among other things,
routinely approving adolescents
for medical transitions without
proper medical health assessments,
calling its work "morally
and medically appalling."
Now, that story, understandably,
got a ton of attention,
including from public officials,
which prompted Weiss to go
on Megyn Kelly's podcast
to take something of a victory lap.
The day after the piece published,
I'd never seen such a sort of rapid
reaction to a piece of journalism.
Missouri's attorney general announced
an investigation into the gender clinic.
The reason that this story
was especially important
and gratifying for us
to have substantiated
was because it's exactly the kind
of story that we exist to pursue.
It's exactly kind of morally
knotty story
in which journalists
avoid pursuing it
because they know they will be punished
or smeared for doing so.
That is why The Free Press exists.
That is an exceptional
amount of selfcongratulation,
and the bar was already set
at "the 'Jerry Maguire' moment
heard around the world".
But she is right.
The state AG apparently found that
article, to borrow a term, "ribbeting",
because they soon announced
an investigation into the center
and it ultimately stopped
treating minors,
with Reed's claims even being used
to help justify a statewide ban
on gender-affirming care for them.
So, it did have real impact.
Which is what makes it so awkward
that, when Washington University
conducted its own investigation,
they found that "allegations
of substandard care"
"causing adverse outcomes for patients
at the Center were unsubstantiated."
And when other outlets
reported the story out,
again and again, their findings did not
match what The Free Press published.
For instance,
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
found dozens of former patients and
parents at the clinic who told them
their experiences sharply contradicted
the examples supplied by Reed.
NBC spent two months reaching out
to nearly 40 people
associated with the center,
and got the same result,
with patients saying the care received
was thorough and slow.
And the Missouri Independent
found parents who told them
any treatments their kids received
were only undertaken
after long consultations with doctors
and mental health professionals,
and often, patients were told
they needed to wait for years.
In fact, at worst, follow-up
reporting showed that,
as more patients sought care,
the clinic became overwhelmed,
as its employees grappled with how
best to help patients.
And to be fair, the Times did find some
former patients who had complaints,
including one
who'd since detransitioned,
and felt there'd been a lack of care
and consideration from the center.
But even that article, which
Weiss claimed vindicated their story,
said it's clear the clinic
benefited many adolescents,
with patients saying their experiences
were overwhelmingly positive.
And the thing is,
some of Reed's marquee examples
just don't hold up
on further inspection.
For instance, she cited the harrowing
story of a patient she claimed suffered
liver toxicity from medication
she was prescribed at the center,
and whose mother was so distraught,
she sent a message saying
they were lucky her family
was not the type to sue.
That sounds pretty striking.
But when the Times
spoke with that family,
they were stunned to read this
characterization of their case,
saying she only experienced liver
problems after getting Covid
and taking another drug
with possible liver side effects.
As for threatening a lawsuit, they
were adamant that never happened,
to the point they went on
local news to refute the whole story.
It's not just not true,
but it's a lie.
We're in shadow,
but we're not hiding.
There's lies, and people have paid for
that in the transgender community.
Did you ever say that
you were going to sue the clinic
or ever allude
to suing the clinic?
No. Nope.
The parents' message goes on to say
they don't regret any decision
and would never have denied their
daughter these life-saving treatments.
We still have no regrets.
It's blatant exploitation
of my daughter's medical situation.
Yeah, that mother felt
that the story was
"blatant exploitation
of her daughter's medical situation",
or as I guess
as Bari would describe it,
"harnessing the punk energy
of the new political realignment."
And look, I get her frustration
at seeing misinformation about
her daughter go far and wide.
In fact, when we reached out
to that mother, she told us,
"I've been fighting for the truth about
that Free Press article for a while."
And if you're getting the sense
that The Free Press isn't about to let
whatever fact-checking they do
get in the way
of the story they want to tell you,
that also extends to some
of the original reporting they do.
Take this piece they published
last year about Austin,
claiming crime had soared there, under
a progressive DA named Jose Garza.
It prominently featured a billionaire
named Daniel Lubetzky,
the founder of Kind Snacks, who'd
moved to Austin a few years earlier
and was supporting a primary campaign
to elect a more moderate DA.
The story claimed
that Austin's "crime wave"
was leading many of its
most buzzed-about new residents,
and some of its wealthiest, to worry
it might become the next San Francisco.
But as local news there pointed out,
there was a pretty big hole
in that piece's argument.
But this article from
a website called The Free Press,
one of the first lines, hopefully we can
pop it up right here on the screen.
One of the first lines, the article
claims crime in Austin has soared
under a progressive
district attorney.
This morning, the numbers tell us
that that is just not the case.
We looked at crime reporting data
from Austin police.
So, in December of 2020,
before Jose Garza took over,
20.500 crimes against people were
committed throughout the entire year.
A few years later, in 2023, with
Garza as DA for a couple of years,
the number was 2.000 fewer
than in the same timeframe.
Yeah, it's true.
And it is kind of striking
that even local news was like,
"Girl, calm down."
Because the only thing they usually
love more than overhyping crime
is maybe,
maybe dogs running five-Ks.
"This just in: woof, woof,
pant, pant, good boy goes fast!"
And finally, there's this piece
The Free Press recently posted
about media coverage
of young people starving in Gaza.
It concerned photos that it said
had "helped convince a growing
number of Americans"
"that Israel has induced famine and
is committing war crimes in Gaza."
There is a lot wrong
with this article.
For one, it questions how starvation
and famine have been measured,
by claiming the IPC,
the international body
that helps monitor
food insecurity and malnutrition,
has "quietly changed
its methodology in Gaza,"
"essentially redefining
the criteria for determining a famine."
But that is false.
Very basically,
the IPC has multiple metrics for
measuring malnutrition in children,
one involves measuring
height and weight,
another involves arm circumference.
Now, because arm circumference
only requires a tape measure,
it's far easier to obtain,
especially in a place like a war zone.
So, in Gaza, that is what
they started using,
because of, you know,
all of this shit happening.
And those methods were not,
in fact, quietly introduced,
as The Free Press suggested,
but have been accepted since 2019,
and used in famine classifications
in South Sudan and Sudan.
But it gets even grosser.
Because the piece tries to provide
extra "context" for some pictures
of starving children.
And here is one of its writers,
the one who used to work
for The Fuck-Hole Times,
summing her work up.
You've probably seen these photos of
skeletal kids in Gaza on front pages,
all over social media,
even in a UNICEF ad.
They've become
the symbols of famine.
We decided to look into these photos
and the stories behind them.
And what we found is that,
in case after case,
these kids were sick,
but not just with malnutrition.
In every instance, they were suffering
with other conditions or illnesses
like cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy
and even traumatic head injuries.
Now, their article claims
all those kids were
"already facing grave situations"
"because of their health, irrespective
of any third-party action."
But a few things. First, the traumatic
head injury she mentioned
was, as their article points out,
caused by an Israeli shell explosion,
which feels like a pretty
significant third-party action.
Second, it's not like the 12 photos
they chose to look into
are the only ones illustrating
stories about famine in Gaza.
And as for the notion
that this is something that
the mainstream media was ignoring,
there is a key problem
with that claim, too.
And see if you can spot it,
as she walks through their
in-depth journalistic process.
We did something so simple
it's shocking that no other
journalist bothered to do it.
So, this is how
we figured this out.
Let's just take this example
of Najwa Hussein Hajjaj
who appeared in CNN as suffering
from severe malnutrition in Gaza City.
So, all we did
is we took her name,
we went to Google Translate, we
took the Arabic spelling of her name,
put that into Google,
and pulled up a lot of local clips
in which her parents were talking
about what was really going on.
And what we learned is that
she has an esophagus condition,
which is something that was
even reported in English media,
including the New York Times.
That is a quite different and
more nuanced story
than the assumption that Israel wants
her dead and they're starving her.
Okay, so if no other journalist
bothered to do it
but it was "even reported
in the New York Times",
that sure suggests a journalist
very much did bother to do it.
But also,
if we're talking about context,
when it comes to the child
she mentioned there,
they quote from
an Arabic news outlet.
Here is the whole section
about her from that outlet.
Here's the translation, and here's
the quote The Free Press pulled,
mentioning her ailments since birth,
including vomiting while eating.
But it's worth noting,
the sentence before says,
"Her condition worsens each day
without access to protein"
"and vitamin-rich foods
that are needed for her treatment."
And the line after reads, "During
the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip,"
"her condition deteriorated,
and she developed malnutrition"
"because the right food for her
was simply unavailable."
And while I would love
to keep splitting hairs
on whether a country starving kids
is better or worse
if those kids are already sick,
let's just table that discussion
for when I see you in hell.
And that is not the only bit of
cherry-picking in that piece,
which features
a lot of young people
with, yes,
pre-existing conditions or ailments,
but which were made significantly
worse when they couldn't access food.
And to be clear, as the president
of Refugees International wrote,
"People with underlying conditions
suffer first when hunger sets in",
adding, "That vulnerability
is not a rebuttal of famine,"
"it is a feature of how
famine kills and who it hits first."
And it is kind of weird that
nobody at The Free Press thought
to include that sort
of important context,
given that they are famously proud
of their ability to Google shit.
And you should also know, that
piece circulated far and wide
among those seeking to
downplay the suffering in Gaza,
including Bibi Netanyahu himself,
who shared that video on his social
media with the caption "Facts matter".
Which is terrible for multiple
reasons, including,
if Netanyahu
ever shared one of our stories,
I think I'd burn this place
to the fucking ground!
And, by the way, any story too!
Even if it was the one
where I ate the ass
of a cake bear that looks like me.
If he retweeted that with
the comment, "Facts matter",
you would never hear from us
ever again!
And look,
everything I've shown you so far
should comfortably be enough
to make you question
the wisdom of putting Bari Weiss
in charge of CBS News
but I still haven't even gotten
to her weirdest venture,
which lays out her priorities
and worldview pretty clearly.
And that is the fact that Bari Weiss
has started her own university.
Specifically, she's co-founded
the University of Austin, in Texas,
and it is exactly what you'd expect.
Here is one
of the school's promo videos.
If you're wondering
why the museums you love
and the publishing houses you love
and the newspapers you used to trust,
if you want to understand
why they are hollowed out,
you have to look
at the nucleation point for this,
and that is the university.
The premise is that America
is not only not great,
but evil to the core and rotten
and need to be torn down.
The answer to that is simply no.
Okay, there are so many things
wrong with that,
from the firm "no" to a bullshit
straw man argument, to the claim
"we all have publishing houses
we love that've been hollowed out",
to the pretentiousness of the phrase
"nucleation point",
which sounds more like the title of
a straight-to-streaming action flop,
starring Steven Seagal.
Now, UATX is currently unaccredited.
And while Weiss proudly posted
this image of students
on the school's first day,
I should note that while
that building does look impressive,
that is because
it's the Texas State Capitol.
The actual school is housed
on a couple floors of a former
department store in downtown Austin,
which is pretty unusual.
You don't generally expect a college
to suddenly pop up
in an abandoned store,
like it's a Spirit fucking Halloween.
But while the school may not
have a traditional campus,
it does have a white marble bust
of Bari Weiss
prominently displayed
in one of its common areas.
It was apparently donated
by Joe Lonsdale,
the billionaire co-founder
of the defense contractor Palantir.
He's one of several billionaire
donors to the school,
along with Daniel Lubetzky,
the nut-bar billionaire
from that Austin "crime wave" story,
and Harlan Crow, famously,
Clarence Thomas' benefactor.
So, the school's already got
a lot of red flags on it,
even before you get
to what's being taught in there.
Its Substack,
because of course it has one,
brags that it's a place where,
"Students quote Joseph Conrad
and Joe Rogan in the same breath."
And one of its big selling points
is that its students adhere
to what's called "the Chatham House
rule", which essentially requires
all classroom conversations
be conducted off-the-record.
I'll let one of the school's
professors explain.
If someone says something
unacceptable to people
or shocking or problematic,
you can't run out and say,
"Bobby said something racist,"
or "Susie actually is a Zionist",
you cannot do this.
And what that means is that
students don't have to conform.
They can actually say
what they think.
That's good! Well, in the spirit
of saying what we think, I'll go first:
your vibe is all the way off.
You look like Guillermo del Toro
if he only directed episodes
of "Yellowstone",
and you enunciate like
you're the third Crane brother
that Frasier and Niles
never talk about.
And you can't tell anyone I said
that, Chatham House rule!
If you're wondering what sort of
topics might require a rule like that,
apparently, one of their first
offerings were summer classes
called the "Forbidden Courses",
which promised to inquire honestly
into today's most vexing questions,
which they then illustrated
with this photo,
of an instructor seeming to point out
hot-button statements for debate.
There it is!
"Non-Black people
cannot use the N-word."
And suddenly, that Chatham House rule
makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it?
Although, any Black college student
will tell you,
you don't need to set up
a whole university
to find out which college kids
are comfortable using the N-word,
when all it takes is a couple rum
and Cokes
and Lil Wayne to come up
on shuffle.
It is no mystery what sort of
person starts a university like this.
But in case there were
any doubt at all,
listen to Bari Weiss, not long after
campus protests started over Gaza,
spell out as clearly as possible
what she wanted to see happen.
Above all, starting today,
we need to uproot, root and branch,
the ideology
that has supplanted truth
at the core
of American higher education.
And that ideology
goes by the name DEI.
Some call it wokeness,
or anti-racism, or progressivism,
or safety-ism, or critical social
justice, or identity Marxism.
Whatever term you use,
what is clear is that this worldview
has gained power in the world in
a conceptual instrument called DEI.
Yeah, and that itself
is a whole worldview right there.
"You know this DEI thing
that we've been trying,"
"where we acknowledge not everyone's
getting equal access to opportunity?"
"Let's just roll back the clock
on that, shall we?"
"Also, let's be anti-anti-racist,"
"and not think too much
about what that might make us."
DEI is actually one
of her favorite targets.
She's also said it's "undermining
America," is "about arrogating power"
and that it "demonizes hard work,
merit, family,"
"and the dignity of the individual."
It is not new, or indeed interesting,
that a commentator would say that.
There are plenty of them out there.
And there'll always be an audience
for those who
want to make that case.
We wouldn't even have done this story
were it not for the fact
that Bari Weiss has just been named
editor-in-chief of CBS News.
And that feels different.
Because there are many opinion-heavy
outlets out there,
from left to right, and with low
to high editorial standards.
This show is, among other things,
an opinion outlet,
and while our staff works
incredibly hard to research stories
before we write something,
and check our facts afterwards,
we're also not the news.
And I wouldn't want anyone
who led a pure opinion outlet,
not even one
that I happen to agree with,
to suddenly be running CBS News.
But it is especially alarming
to have someone doing it
who has spent years putting out
work that, in my opinion,
is, at best, irresponsible,
and at worst, deeply misleading.
And look, it is not just about
Bari Weiss being at CBS.
It's about the fact that CBS
is now under the control
of someone who thinks that she,
and her editorial sensibility,
make her a good fit for the job,
and who, incidentally,
is reportedly preparing a bid for
Warner Brothers Discovery,
Which isn't ideal!
Although, I've got to say,
if what he likes about Bari
is that she forces him
to have hard conversations
that get a bit uncomfortable,
maybe he'll like this!
But, the thing is,
it's not just about Ellison, either.
Again, he's just the latest
in a string of billionaires
who've taken over
our journalistic institutions
from the Washington Post
to the L.A. Times,
and started making
worrying changes.
And whatever complaints I might've
had with their coverage before,
and I have had plenty, my solution
would never have been this.
Because when these
takeovers get announced,
it's easy to think, "Well,
thank goodness there are other outlets"
"that aren't under some
billionaire's influence."
And that is true, because there is
always another one,
until there suddenly isn't.
And I admit, I don't know
what is gonna happen next.
Maybe Bari Weiss will completely
reshape CBS News.
Maybe she'll flame out
and write another resignation letter
heard around the world.
But it is worth keeping an eye out
for subtle changes there.
Because while I'm sure
many of CBS's good journalists
will continue to do great work,
if you start seeing people resigning,
or getting fired,
or you start seeing stories
that seem "off" in some way,
especially if it involves
"the left going too far"
on a topic Bari Weiss cares about,
it's worth asking yourself
why that might be.
Because, unfortunately,
the much bigger answer
might be that a billionaire has
chosen to inject contrarian,
right-leaning opinion journalism
into an American icon,
even if, much like that
Thanksgiving Day Spider-Man,
it has absolutely no fucking business
being there.
And now, this.
And Now: People on TV Analyze
Taylor Swift's Song "Wood".
Just for folks at home, you mentioned
the song that you said is dirty.
- Wood.
There you go. Do the math.
- That "Wood" song?
- The "Wood" song.
Let's just say
it's a love letter to Travis.
Well, you can call it that, too.
The redwood song?
She is having a great time!
Excellent time.
Let's just say,
Taylor Swift is a very happy woman.
I'll just say that.
- It's about wood?
- It's about somebody's wood.
Yeah, it's definitely
not about a two-by-four.
She doesn't have to knock
on wood, as people do.
Somebody's knocking the wood.
She doesn't have to hope or knock
on wood that it's gonna work out.
She'd be with him forever.
And then she mentioned
that his manhood
is the size of a tree.
It's a song that references
Travis Kelce's penis.
That's our show,
thanks so much for watching.
We are off next week,
back October 26th, good night!