Connie Chung is a legend in journalism, as the second woman to sit at the anchor desk of a major network evening newscast, and the first Asian-American to ever do it. She was a face that many trusted at CBS News, who handled many major news stories during her tenure. Her former place of employment has been undergoing a major overhaul of late, and Chung is open that she doesn’t care for what she sees.
Chung and her husband, talk show host Maury Povich, were recently guests on the Pablo Torre Find Out podcast, where Chung doesn’t hesitate to call greed the driving force behind the purchase of Paramount by David Ellison, which has led to a complete overhaul of CBS News, with Bari Weiss now the head of the organization. Chung said…
CBS is a whole different organization than I had worked for. CBS has now been taken over, thanks to greedy owners, Shari Redstone partnering with David Ellison, Larry Ellison‘s son. Their greed has caused the venerable CBS to actually disassemble, to crash into crumbles, and they’ve hired this – I don’t know what to call Bari Weiss.
Bari Weiss, who previously ran the conservative blog The Free Press, was brought in following the Paramount/Skydance merger as the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. Since then, we’ve seen significant changes to various parts of CBS News, including the removal of anchors from their shows, and even rumors that longstanding members of the organization, like Gayle King, might be on their way out.
When asked if she watches CBS News currently, Connie Chung admits not simply that she doesn't, but that she can't. However, many of her feelings about the news at CBS can be applied more broadly to a feeling many people have about modern news media, as opinion journalism seems to be the focus. Chung explained…
We don’t. I mean, I can’t. The paradigm has completely changed in news and we have so much opinion that the truth doesn’t hold value anymore. What we end up doing, as consumers, is trying to find the truth. We can’t find good, old-fashioned facts, and it distresses me so terribly.
It’s certainly true that opinion shows, especially on cable news, have become increasingly popular. For many people, however, the opinion shows seem to be the primary place they get news. Chung laments that there are becoming fewer places where it is possible to get news that simply provides the truth.
The changes at CBS News are likely just beginning. Those changes are happening in tandem with other big moves on the entertainment side of CBS, including the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It seems all but certain that CBS and Paramount will be very different places in just a few years.
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