Bari Weiss (/ˈbæriwaɪs/BARR-eeWYSS; born March 25, 1984) is an American political commentator who is theeditor-in-chief ofCBS News.[1] She was anop-ed and book review editor atThe Wall Street Journal from 2013 to 2017[2] and an op-ed staff editor and writer on culture and politics atThe New York Times from 2017 to 2020.[3] Since March 1, 2021, she has worked as a regular columnist for the German daily newspaperDie Welt.[4] Weiss founded the media companyThe Free Press (formerly Common Sense) and hosts the podcastHonestly.[5]
Weiss attendedColumbia University, majoring in history and graduating in 2007.[10][11][12] She founded the Columbia Coalition for Sudan in response to theWar in Darfur.[13] From 2005 to 2007 Weiss was the founding editor ofThe Current, a magazine at Columbia for politics, culture, and Jewish affairs.[14][15] After graduating, she was aWall Street JournalBartley Fellow in 2007 and a Dorot Fellow from 2007 to 2008 in Jerusalem.[7][16]
After the 2004release of the filmColumbia Unbecoming, which alleged classroom intimidation of pro-Israel students by pro-Palestinian professors, Weiss, Aharon Horwitz, Daniella Kahane, and Ariel Beery co-founded Columbians for Academic Freedom (CAF). Weiss said she had felt intimidated by ProfessorJoseph Massad during his lectures[17] and thought he spent too much time talking aboutZionism andIsrael for a course about the entire Middle East.[18]
In response to the film's release, Columbia University put together a committee to examine the allegations.[19] The committee criticized Massad, but emphasized a lack of civility on campus, including from pro-Israel students who heckled some of their professors.[20][21] Weiss criticized the committee for its focus on individual grievances, maintaining that students were intimidated because of their views.[22]
In her 2019 bookHow to Fight Anti-Semitism, Weiss describes the contentious atmosphere during this period as giving her "a front row seat to leftist anti-Semitism" at the university.[23]: 94 JournalistGlenn Greenwald has alleged that the activism Weiss initiated was "designed to ruin the careers of Arab professors by equating their criticisms of Israel with racism, anti-Semitism, and bullying, and its central demand was that those professors (some of whom lacked tenure) be disciplined for their transgressions".[24]
Career
In 2007, Weiss worked forHaaretz andThe Forward.[8] InHaaretz, she criticized the tenure promotion ofBarnard College anthropologistNadia Abu El-Haj[25] over a book that Weiss alleged caricatured Israeli archaeologists.[26] From 2011 to 2013, Weiss was senior news and politics editor at American conservative magazineTablet.[8][27]
2013–2017:The Wall Street Journal
Weiss was an op-ed and book review editor atThe Wall Street Journal from 2013 until April 2017.[2] She left following the departure of deputy editorial page editorBret Stephens, for whom she had worked, and joined him atThe New York Times.[28]
2017–2020:The New York Times
In 2017, as part of an effort byThe New York Times to broaden the ideological range of its opinion staff after theinauguration of President Trump, opinion editorJames Bennet hired Weiss as an op-ed staff editor and writer about culture and politics.[29][30][31] Through her first year at the paper, she wrote opinion pieces advocating for the blending of cultural influences, something derided by what she termed the "strident left" ascultural appropriation.[32] She criticized the organizers of the2017 Women's March protesting theinauguration of President Trump for their "chilling ideas and associations", singling out several she believed to have madeantisemitic oranti-Zionist statements in the past.[33] Her article about theChicago Dyke March, asserting thatintersectionality is a "caste system, in which people are judged according to how much their particular caste has suffered throughout history",[34] was condemned by playwrightEve Ensler for misunderstanding the work of intersectional politics.[35] Other sources condemned the article as fundamentally misunderstanding intersectionality.[36][37][38]
In January 2018,Babe.net published an anonymous woman's allegation that comedian and actorAziz Ansari's behavior during a date rose to the level of sexual assault. Weiss published a piece titled "Aziz Ansari Is Guilty. Of Not Being a Mind Reader.", one of many responses to this incident in the context of the#MeToo movement.[39][40][41]
In March 2018, Weiss published the column "We're All Fascists Now", in which she argued that members of the left wing were increasingly intolerant of alternate views, presenting varied examples. Shortly after publication, the piece was corrected and an editorial note was placed on it because one of the examples Weiss used was a fakeantifa Twitter account. This account had been identified as fake in multiple media outlets in 2017 as a right-wing masquerade aimed at discrediting the left-wing protest movement.[42][43][44]
In May 2018, Weiss published "Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web". This piece profiled a collection of thinkers who shared an unorthodox approach[clarification needed] to their fields and the media landscape. Weiss collectively described them as theIntellectual Dark Web, borrowing the term fromEric Weinstein, managing director ofThiel Capital. Outlets commented on and critiqued the label through 2020.[45][46][47]
On June 7, 2020, theTimes editorial page editor,James Bennet, resigned after more than 1,000 staffers signed a letter protesting his publication of an op-ed[29] by U.S. SenatorTom Cotton saying that since "rioters have plunged many American cities into anarchy", soldiers should be sent as backup for the police to end the violence. Bennet later said he had not read the op-ed beforehand.[48] Weiss called the internal controversy an ongoing "civil war" between what she called young "social justice warriors" and what she called older "free speech advocate" staffers.[48][49][50] This characterization was disputed by other journalists and opinion writers at theTimes;Taylor Lorenz, a technology reporter who covers internet culture, called it a "willful misrepresentation" that ignored the numerous older staffers who had spoken out, while Jamal Jordan, theTimes's digital storytelling editor, criticized Weiss for not listening to her black colleagues and dismissing their concerns as a "woke civil war".[48]
Resignation fromThe New York Times
Weiss announced her departure fromThe New York Times on July 14, 2020, publishing a resignation letter on her website criticizing theTimes for capitulating to criticism on Twitter and for not defending her against alleged bullying by her colleagues.[51] She accused her former employer of "unlawful discrimination, hostile work environment, andconstructive discharge" and "caving to the whims of critics on Twitter".[3]
Her resignation from theTimes drew considerable news coverage.[3] In her letter, Weiss wrote, "Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions." She also wrote, "Twitter is not on the masthead ofThe New York Times, but Twitter has become its ultimate editor."[52]
Her letter was praised by U.S. SenatorsTed Cruz,Marco Rubio, andKelly Loeffler;Donald Trump Jr.; political commentatorBen Shapiro;[53][54] former Democratic presidential candidatesAndrew Yang andMarianne Williamson; and political commentatorBill Maher.[55][56][57] Conversely, the letter attracted substantial criticism from left-leaning media sources.[58] Alex Shephard criticized Weiss's letter inThe New Republic, calling Weiss's resignation a form of "self-cancellation" and part of a pattern in her work of "taking thin, anecdotal evidence and framing it in grandiose, culture-war terms".[59] Writing inThe Guardian,Moira Donegan called Weiss a "professional rightwing attention seeker" and disputed her claim that social media's influence had led to a hostile media environment for conservatives.[60]
TheFinancial Times has called Weiss a "self-styled free speech martyr".[61] In 2021, Weiss compared her professional travails to those ofGalileo Galilei, who was threatened with being burned at the stake unless he renounced his scientific views.[61]
On October 27, 2020, Weiss appeared on the talk showThe View to discusscancel culture, which she called "wrong and deeply un-American"; she said, "I believe that no one should be hung or have their reputation destroyed or lose their job because of a mistake or liking a bad tweet."[62][63]
Beginning in 2020, Weiss occasionally wrote articles for the German newspaperDie Welt. Since March 1, 2021, she has worked ascontributing editor forDie Welt.[4]
In 2023, Weiss publicly criticized Palestinian professor and poetRefaat Alareer for an internet post[71] in which he ridiculed a debunked claim that a baby was burned in an oven in theOctober 7 attacks.[72] Alareer subsequently received rape anddeath threats from some of Weiss's online followers before being killed by anIDF airstrike on December 6.[71]
In October 2025,Paramount Skydance boughtThe Free Press for $150 million and installed Weiss, who had no prior experience inbroadcast journalism, aseditor-in-chief ofCBS News.[1][73][74] She reports toDavid Ellison, the head of Paramount Skydance.[75] This announcement was interpreted by critics as a sign that CBS was shifting rightward in response to the Trump era, and was praised by Trump himself.[76][77][78] This was shortly followed by layoffs, which, one former CBS producer alleged, primarily targeted racial minorities while white employees were simply shifted to other jobs. The total reported losses were around 100 employees, including eight on-air hosts, all of them women.[79]
On December 10, 2025, Weiss appointedCBS Mornings co-hostTony Dokoupil as theCBS Evening News anchor effective January 5, 2026.[80] Later that month, Weissspiked a60 Minutes segment titled "Inside CECOT", an investigation by journalistSharyn Alfonsi into the SalvadoranTerrorism Confinement Center.[81] At a meeting the next day with60 Minutes staff, Alfonsi said Weiss had not contacted her before spiking the story and journalistScott Pelley charged that Weiss had not attended any of five internal screenings of the story during the final stages of editing.[75] InCNN Business, journalistBrian Stelter wrote that Weiss had "sparked a crisis".[82] The full episode was inadvertently published online in Canada on a streaming platform owned byGlobal TV, which held Canadian streaming rights to60 Minutes, and rapidly spread online.[83]
Political views
Weiss has been described asconservative byHaaretz,The Times of Israel,The Daily Dot,Business Insider, andAl Jazeera.[84][85][86][87][88] In a 2019 interview withJoe Rogan, she called herself a "left-leaning centrist",[89] and she has also called herself aradical centrist.[90][91] According toThe Washington Post, Weiss "portrays herself as a liberal uncomfortable with the excesses of left-wing culture"[92] and has sought to "position herself as a reasonable liberal concerned that far-left critiques stifled free speech".[93]The New Republic called her "anti-woke, anti-trans, pro-Israel", andVanity Fair has called her "a provocateur".[8][94] TheJewish Telegraphic Agency said her work "doesn't lend itself easily to labels".[95] TheTimes of Israel reported that her public fight withThe New York Times made her a hero among some conservatives.[96] According toThe New York Times, when asked to share something that informed her values at a team retreat, Weiss chose a clip from the showTransparent, which features a trans protagonist. She reportedly chose it because "she never wanted to forget the humanity of those with whom she vehemently disagrees".[97] She has been described as anti-trans[98][99] for her editorial decisions on transgender issues at The Free Press.[100]
Weiss has expressed support for Israel andZionism in her columns. When writerAndrew Sullivan described her as an "unhinged Zionist", she responded that she "happily plead[ed] guilty as charged".[101]
In 2018, she said she believed thesexual assault allegations againstU.S. Supreme Court justice nomineeBrett Kavanaugh but questioned whether they should disqualify him from serving on the Supreme Court, because he was 17 when he allegedly assaultedChristine Blasey Ford.[86] After backlash in the press, Weiss conceded that hersound bite was glib and simplistic, and said instead that Kavanaugh's "rage-filled behavior" before theSenate Judiciary Committee should have disqualified him.[8]
I hope this week that American Jews have woken up to the price of that bargain: They have traded policies that they like for the values that have sustained the Jewish people—and frankly, this country—forever: Welcoming the stranger; dignity for all human beings; equality under the law; respect for dissent; love of truth.[102]
In January 2022, Weiss was criticized by a doctor appearing onCNN for saying onReal Time with Bill Maher thatCOVID-19 pandemic restrictions had resulted in mental health issues and that as a result she was "done with COVID".[104]
As of 2024, Weiss had visited Israel over 15 times, including after theOctober 7 attacks, and compared pro-Israel social media commentators to former SovietrefusenikNatan Sharansky, whose years in prison made him an icon of the movement to free Jews from the Soviet Union.[96] In 2024, Weiss was featured in the documentary filmsOctober 8[105] andTragic Awakening,[106] both of which depict pro-Palestinian sentiment following the October 7 attacks as antisemitic.[citation needed]
Personal life
While attending Columbia University, Weiss had an on-and-off relationship with comedianKate McKinnon.[8][107] She also dated Ariel Beery, with whom she co-founded Columbians for Academic Freedom.[13] From 2013 to 2016, Weiss was married to environmental engineer Jason Kass.[8] Since 2018, she has been in a relationship withNellie Bowles,[108][109] a former tech reporter forThe New York Times. They have since married and have two children.[110][111][112] Weiss has said Bowles is their daughter's biological mother.[113]
^Specifically, for writing which "best demonstrates the importance of freedom with originality, wit and eloquence"
^Specifically, for Best Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice forHow to Fight Anti-Semitism
^For Courage and Integrity in Journalism "for her persistent willingness to resist groupthink, her commitment to telling the truth, even when it’s politically inconvenient, and her courage in standing up for her people against the rising tide of antisemitism and Zionophobia” (Judea Pearl in the name of theDaniel Pearl Foundation)
^Testa, Jessica (6 October 2025). "How Bari Weiss Won".The New York Times, fifth paragraph. Retrieved 9 October 2025. Print version appeared as "How a New Media Upstart Shot To the Top of CBS's Crown Jewel", 7 October 2025, p. A1.
