Bari Weiss’s hang-ups about a story on violent Israeli settlers almost drove veteran reporter Lesley Stahl to quit 60 Minutes.
A 60 Minutes segment that aired Sunday highlighted the groups of militant settlers that are violently driving Palestinians out of the West Bank, and doing so with impunity.
During the editorial process for the piece, Weiss became “very, very hands-on” with the story, one insider told Status. Since Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief, she has repeatedly placed her own pro-Trump and pro-Israel politics at the center of CBS News’s coverage.
Things were so bad this time that Stahl, a 35-year veteran of the venerated program, privately discussed quitting, sources familiar with the discussions told Status.
With just days left until the story was meant to air, discussions about the package became extremely contentious. “They didn’t know if it was going to air because the screenings got so heated,” one source told Status.
Weiss and her deputy managing editor Charles Forelle presented a mountain of notes that were incredibly broad. At one point, Forelle suggested postponing the piece altogether, sparking an aggressive exchange. The final piece was aired on-schedule Sunday.
This isn’t the first time that Weiss’s steadfast defense of Israel has appeared to interfere with her work at CBS News. In a separate piece that aired on last week on the anniversary of Hamas’s deadly incursion into Israeli territory, Weiss’s handpicked foreign editor Shayndi Raice reportedly blocked CBS correspondent Holly Williams from reporting the death toll in Gaza.
In May, Weiss reportedly gave Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a choice between being interviewed by 60 Minutes’s longtime correspondent or CBS’s chief Washington correspondent, Major Garrett. Netanyahu chose Garrett, who doesn’t even work for 60 Minutes. In April, Weiss reportedly meddled with CBS Sunday Morning, making last-minute edits on a story about Israeli archeological digs in the West Bank. One of the story’s subjects later complained that his interview was “selectively edited to falsely portray me as someone who erases Jewish history.”
Since Weiss’s installation, there has been a talent exodus from the news magazine, including Anderson Cooper, longtime 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens, CBS News producer Mary Walsh, CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey, and 60 Minutes host Sharyn Alfonsi, to name a few.