What To Know
- W. Kamau Bell expressed concern about CNN’s future amid reports that Bari Weiss could take over.
- Bell criticized recent decisions at CBS, including the cancelation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
- He fears similar turmoil and negative changes could occur at CNN.
Former CNN star W. Kamau Bell does not have a good feeling about the network’s future amid the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger and the possibility that CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss could take over.
Bell, who hosted United Shades of America on CNN from 2016 to 2022, recently appeared on Obsessed: The Podcast, where he discussed the recent turmoil at CNN and CBS News. He said he “feels bad” for his friends and former colleagues who still work at the network, saying that their “jobs are going to be made harder by Bari Weiss.”
Weiss, who was appointed the editor-in-chief of CBS News last October, has faced criticism for her lack of broadcast journalism experience and for making sweeping changes across the network. Recent reports suggest Weiss could be in line to head up a similar position at CNN once the merger between Paramount and WBD goes through.
“Let’s be clear, they’re not giving Bari Weiss that job because she’s done such a good job at CBS News,” Bell said, per The Daily Beast.
CBS News has been in chaos over the past two months after Weiss fired several 60 Minutes staff, including producers Draggan Mihailovich and Tanya Simon and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. After longtime correspondent Scott Pelley spoke out against Weiss and the firings during a heated staff meeting, he, too, was dismissed.
Bell agreed with those sentiments shared by Pelley, but said the damage was done before that when CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and replaced it with Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed.
“The damage that CBS has done by canceling Colbert and giving it to Byron Allen has hurt the morning show,” Bell explained, saying that people are now “not watching Colbert at night and they’re not watching Comics Unleashed, so by the time the morning comes along, their TVs are not at the CBS morning show.”
He continued, “And the morning show is supposed to be the moneymaker. So Bari Weiss and the people who were on CBS have actually hurt their money-making show. And that’s how you know this isn’t even about money, it’s about power. And if they have enough power, they’ll just steal the money.”
Bell said he fears similar damage happening at CNN should Weiss take the reins, and he longs for the CNN of yesteryear. “I feel bad for CNN because there’s been a lot of changes at that network since I left,” he said, adding that his time at the network is “the CNN that people sort of miss.”
“Every now and again, fans of mine will be like, ‘Could you go back to CNN?’” he stated. “Bari Weiss taking over means that chance, which was already small, is now absolutely dead.”
