Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee at CBS’ Cozy Correspondents Dinner
Bari Weiss’ approach to free speech has always been fungible. Weiss and other conservative students at Columbia complained in 2005 that professors were limiting students’ ability to speak freely about Israel in the classroom. The students’ solution was making a one-sided documentary about their angst. Weiss labeled the professors racist and some activists called for them to be fired.
This was the first step for Weiss in a career that eventually landed her at The New York Times as an op-ed columnist. She famously departed from the paper three years later, decrying the Times’ suppression of opposing viewpoints and whining that colleagues were being mean to her in Slack chats.
Weiss’ drama gene always benefits her and she quickly segued into creating The Free Press, whose approach to journalism is the conventional wisdom of the counter-intuitive take. Recently, The Free Press railed against pro-Palestinian protests at her alma mater and other American universities. The Free Press became such a trusted ally of the Trump administration that the paper laundered the news that the president was withholding $400 million in funding from Columbia, accusing the university of not curbing antisemitism protests, with a headline shouting “EXCLUSIVE.”
Last year, David Ellison’s Skydance bought Weiss’ paper for $150 million in a series of transactions that ended with the company purchasing CBS. Now Weiss runs CBS News, where a senior producer was recently frog marched out of the building a few days after pleading with new anchor Tony Dokoupil to ask Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tougher questions in the wake of the United States’ undeclared war on Iran.
The Guest List at the Correspondents Dinner
All the pieces were clicking into place, so it wasn’t a surprise when Weiss’ CBS and parent company Paramount announced they would host noted free speech advocates Hegseth, deportation czar Stephen Miller, and FCC chairman Brendan Carr at this weekend’s White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C. The soiree will feature a keynote speech from Donald Trump, another noted friend of the press. It has been reported that Trump’s remarks will involve the listing of grievances and verbally beating the press.
Miller’s long war on the press has been well documented. In Trump’s second term, he has maintained more of a dark wizard operating the mouth of a foul-mouthed Oz. Still, he has occasionally reverted to form. The Washington Post reported in 2025 that Miller accused the media of siding with “terrorists” in its coverage of undocumented immigrants, told them they live in condos in nice areas, and decried the “cancerous, communist, woke culture that is destroying this country.”
Hegseth and the War on the Press
Shortly after his confirmation, Hegseth evicted all the actual reporters from the Pentagon, replacing The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN with Breitbart and right-wing huckster Cam Higby. Hegseth’s actions were recently thrown out of court with the judge labeling the move as a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech.
Last week, Hegseth denounced reporters’ coverage of the war as “garbage” and “incredibly unpatriotic.” He then made an analogy that the press was like the Pharisees, the ancient elites in the New Testament that hounded Jesus. This made Hegseth the silver medalist in the administration’s weekly “We are the Jesus” competition to Trump’s Last Temptation of Christ robe-wearing cosplay.
FCC Commissioner Carr’s actions against the media have been classic hatchet man. He leaned on ABC affiliates to cancel Jimmy Kimmel after the comedian’s remarks on Charlie Kirk, saying things could either go “the easy way or the hard way.” Last month, Carr decried the media’s coverage of the war, posting: “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.”
It’s not hard to see what Weiss gets out of putting her dignity in a blind trust by hosting The Three Amigos of the media apocalypse. Weiss and Ellison are simpatico in their ardent support of Israel and know they must make hay with Trump over the next 33 months. They both know a deep reckoning on American-Israeli relations is coming under the next president whether it be a Republican or Democrat. Every day, they’re burning daylight.
