The Bari Diaries

**Dylan Byers** (0:02)
Do you really think David Ellison is going about trying to close a $110 billion merger so he can get Warner Brothers' discovery and thinks all of this is just going fine? The fact that Scott Pelley is blowing them up in the pages of the New York Times, the fact that there isn't a day that goes by without a story about Bari Weiss, the fact that CBS News actually does sort of seem to be on fire if you're standing anywhere outside of Bari Weiss' office.
No, no, obviously not.

**Peter Hamby** (0:37)
Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Wednesday, June 10th. Today I'm joined by Dylan Byers with the latest on the turmoil and theatrics inside CBS News and 60 Minutes. After Scott Pelley gave a tell-all interview to The New York Times about his firing from the network and how Bari Weiss meddled in the show's editorial process. Dylan also fact checks a new report that Paramount and David Ellison are bringing in a more senior figure to backstop Weiss in the newsroom and help her run the network and the many minefields she's currently navigating. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.
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Happy Wednesday everybody and welcome to The Powers That Be. I'm joined today by my colleague Dylan Byers to talk about the rolling drama at CBS, swirling around Bari Weiss, 60 Minutes, David Ellison, Nick Bilton, Leslie Stahl, you name it. Dylan joins me today from a reporting trip where he is in Charlottesville, Virginia. Katie Couric, I know you're listening. We see you. Dylan, do you know what a wahoo is?

**Dylan Byers** (3:29)
A wahoo? It's a gas station mini-mart.

**Peter Hamby** (3:32)
No, that's a wah-wah. Damn.
When people at UVA say go-hoos, do you know what that means?

**Dylan Byers** (3:41)
I don't.

**Peter Hamby** (3:42)
Okay, well, the official mascot is the Cavaliers, but a wahoo in UVA lore is a fish that can drink its own weight and water, but really they're talking about beer. So just giving you some local knowledge.

**Dylan Byers** (3:57)
I love this state. I love this state. Can I ask you a question as a Richmond native? Sure.
Do you consider yourself part of the North or the South?

**Peter Hamby** (4:08)
Oh man. Go back to the Pacific Northwest, man. Well, I wouldn't say I consider myself part of the South in the Jefferson Davis sense, but Richmond and Richmonders are firmly part of the real Virginia, not Northern Virginia.
Although, I think one in seven actual people in Virginia lives in Fairfax County or something. But no, Richmond is firmly, it was once the capital of the Confederacy, so you won't find any person there.

**Dylan Byers** (4:34)
To me, it's like the September between summer and fall. It is just this beautiful portal between the Northeast and the South. I love Virginia. I always have.

**Peter Hamby** (4:46)
The Richmond, Charlottesville, man, that's a beautiful, it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful drive, I will say. I miss it so much. And I'm proud to be from the Commonwealth. Dylan, let's start with 60 Minutes. There's a bunch of directions I want to take this conversation. Let's start with one. There was a report from our pals, Mike Allen and Sarah Fisher at Axios yesterday that feels like it kind of aped what you had reported. It was reported many weeks ago, which is that the brass at Paramount is looking to bring somebody in to help Bari Weiss manage all of the unrest in the newsroom. Basically, it implied, and again, you reported this, that Bari will also eventually, when this merger happens, take a huge role at CNN. And then they would bring in a more senior TV veteran, a Mark Thompson, a David Rhodes, a Noah Oppenheim, Caesar Conde. These are some of the names, Ben Sherwood, formerly of ABC, to do the quote unquote business operations. Even though when I read that in Axios, I was a little confused because all of those guys that I just mentioned, and they are all guys, you know, sure, they do business operations, but they're all very savvy journalists who have editorial insights and would make editorial decisions under this scenario.