Bari Weiss. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
On Wednesday afternoon, Bari Weiss sat down for lunch with Norah O’Donnell, a pairing that would have seemed quite unlikely just a year ago. Back then, O’Donnell was quietly shown the door at the “CBS Evening News” as then-network boss Wendy McMahon overhauled the channel’s flagship broadcast, which has long trailed its ABC and NBC counterparts in the ratings. At the time, O’Donnell’s exit was spun as a positive, with a glowing Puck piece having described her as pivoting to a “Barbara Walters-ish” role, conducting marquee interviews across platforms. In reality, of course, she’d been pushed out of the chair.
A year later, the tables have turned. CBS News is now under new ownership and leadership—Weiss and Tom Cibrowski at the helm of the now-David Ellison–owned network—and O’Donnell is angling for a comeback. Indeed, according to people familiar with the matter, she’s been working to curry favor with Weiss, whose first order of business, alongside Cibrowski, is to breathe life back into the "Evening News," which has languished under co-anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois. It’s hard to imagine O’Donnell doesn’t see a chance to reclaim the “Evening News” throne she once sat on.
At minimum, her exile at the network appears to be over. After being put out to pasture by McMahon, I’m told that…
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The Pentagon. (Photo by Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images)
Propaganda From the Pentagon: Over the past 24 hours, the Pentagon has seized on a story published by The NYT to whitewash its draconian new press rules—regulations so extreme they prohibit reporters from soliciting tips on social media, bar all photography inside the building, and even forbid sketches of what journalists observe unless permission by the press office is granted. Multiple Pentagon spokespeople have publicly cited The NYT article, which carried the misleading headline “Pentagon Relaxes Press Access Rules,” to suggest the restrictions aren’t as bad as other reporters are making them out to be. Inside the Pentagon press corps…
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