The Bari Weiss Strategy(letter.otherlife.co)
letter.otherlife.co
The Bari Weiss Strategy
https://letter.otherlife.co/p/bari
30 comments
A lot of her credibility and name recognition stem from her being popular at the NYT and then being ejected for ideological conflict. "First get famous as an archangel evicted from heaven" is not an easily replicable path to success.
She was not ejected, she left of her own volition.
True. She claims a hostile work environment. That's a sort of constructive ejection when it gets intense. A better word is ostracized.
If you buy her framing, sure. But the New Republic's analysis at the time called it "auto-cancellation: quitting, then blaming her peers for driving her out" - noting her resignation letter was "long on invective and just plain long, [but] short on evidence." She was alone in her characterization of a NY Times staff meeting shortly before her departure as a "civil war"; numerous Times staffers who were actually there publicly contradicted her, calling it just a normal editorial conversation.
She'd spent years building a cancel culture narrative, then positioned her dramatic exit as living proof of her own thesis. Pretty straight line from there to her $150M exit. There's a lot of money in catering to the worldview of billionaires who see themselves as victims.
https://newrepublic.com/article/158535/self-cancellation-bar...
She'd spent years building a cancel culture narrative, then positioned her dramatic exit as living proof of her own thesis. Pretty straight line from there to her $150M exit. There's a lot of money in catering to the worldview of billionaires who see themselves as victims.
https://newrepublic.com/article/158535/self-cancellation-bar...
> Yet I'm sure most of those investors are quite happy with this result, as some of them seem to be on Twitter, which really just proves that there is a whole other non-financial game that exists within the VC game. They are willing to back serious operators trying to change the culture, and even if you don't produce a meaningful return, there are other ways you can win (even in their eyes).
And where is capitalism? This is the 21th century equivalent of Palmerston paying off The London Times so that no one thinks too hard about why England would ever want to fight for the Confederacy.
And where is capitalism? This is the 21th century equivalent of Palmerston paying off The London Times so that no one thinks too hard about why England would ever want to fight for the Confederacy.
Highly recommend John Oliver on Bari Weiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gieTx_P6INQ
Folks like Oliver hate Weiss because her path to success—building a real business that meets a customer demand, generates revenue and employs people—is one that can’t be gifted upon someone based on their checking boxes and playing office politics. The weasel word here is “qualified.”
How and why did a news business that makes $18 million in revenue get valued at $150 million? That sort of multiple is typically only seen by high growth tech firms .
This doesn't make any sense. No part of Oliver's career --- I'm not a fan --- has been based on checking boxes and "playing office politics".
I didn’t say his viewpoint was self-serving. It’s ideological. A system based on box checking and politics makes it easier to achieve liberal social and political goals.
Seems like a just-so story. You could have just said Oliver has it out for Weiss over politics and ideology, and I'd have agreed. But you came up with this weird specific story instead.
I’d say that elevation of box checking and paper credentialism over accomplishments is one specific, relevant aspect of that ideological difference.
I’m not sure I understand your argument. Are you suggesting that John Oliver got where he is via box checking and credentialism?
I’m suggesting that, as an ideological matter, Oliver values box checking and credentialism in hiring someone to run CBS News, and devalues business accomplishments.
The Free Press makes $15M in annual revenue and sold for $150M - that's a 10x revenue multiple. That's not a business outcome, that's an ideological bailout. Ellison didn't buy this as a media investment, he bought it to install Weiss at CBS. The early VCs (Andreessen, Sacks, etc.) weren't making business bets either - they were funding ideology and got rewarded for it when a fellow billionaire needed to acquire the vehicle to legitimize his hire (but still nowhere near the type of exit they would seek for their non-ideological bets).
Also, since when is "built a business" the qualification for editor-in-chief of CBS News? That's an _editorial_ position at a major news organization. The relevant qualifications are journalism credentials and editorial judgment - you know, the things Weiss notably lacks. She came up through opinion pages, not the news side, and as Oliver documented, her publication has repeatedly published poorly fact-checked stories that fell apart under scrutiny. But sure, she can raise money from right-wing billionaires, so let's put her in charge of 60 Minutes.
Also, since when is "built a business" the qualification for editor-in-chief of CBS News? That's an _editorial_ position at a major news organization. The relevant qualifications are journalism credentials and editorial judgment - you know, the things Weiss notably lacks. She came up through opinion pages, not the news side, and as Oliver documented, her publication has repeatedly published poorly fact-checked stories that fell apart under scrutiny. But sure, she can raise money from right-wing billionaires, so let's put her in charge of 60 Minutes.
More specifically, it sounds like an acqui-hire. Legacy media is in the toilet in terms of brand and profitability. You don’t need to reach for some conspiracy theory about “funding ideology” to understand why the owners would want to install Weiss. The ideology argument also makes no sense, because legacy media loves Wall Street and billionaires, as long they pretend to be socially liberal. And Weiss is known for being center-right on cultural issues, not economic ones.
> Also, since when is "built a business" the qualification for editor-in-chief of CBS News?
Building a business is a great qualification for any management position.
> Also, since when is "built a business" the qualification for editor-in-chief of CBS News?
Building a business is a great qualification for any management position.
"Building a business is a great qualification for any management position."
So the guy who owns a bunch of McDonald's franchises is qualified to manage a team of surgeons? Someone who built a successful plumbing business should run a law firm? This is such obvious nonsense it's hardly worth taking seriously.
Management positions require domain expertise. The editor-in-chief of CBS News needs to understand journalism - how to evaluate sources, verify facts, assess editorial judgment, manage reporters. Weiss has none of that. She's an opinion writer, and the Free Press is mostly opinion with a sprinkling of notably shoddy opinion-driven pseudo-journalism.
And her "business" - which again, sold for 10x revenue in what was clearly an ideological acquisition - has produced work like the Gaza starvation piece that has been thoroughly debunked, most recently by Drop Site [1]. The FP never contacted any of the families. When Drop Site actually did the reporting and spoke to the families, they found the opposite of what Weiss claimed - these children were starving due to the blockade, and their pre-existing conditions made them more vulnerable to malnutrition, not less.
That's not "ground truth" journalism. That's lazy Google searches used to push an ideological narrative while calling it reporting. And now she's running CBS News - including 60 Minutes, the #1 news program in the country.
When the talent heads for the exits and ratings tank, will you concede Weiss was actually destructive to the organization? Or will you celebrate because you're on board with her ideological project regardless of the journalistic outcome?
[1] https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bari-weiss-free-press-incompl...
So the guy who owns a bunch of McDonald's franchises is qualified to manage a team of surgeons? Someone who built a successful plumbing business should run a law firm? This is such obvious nonsense it's hardly worth taking seriously.
Management positions require domain expertise. The editor-in-chief of CBS News needs to understand journalism - how to evaluate sources, verify facts, assess editorial judgment, manage reporters. Weiss has none of that. She's an opinion writer, and the Free Press is mostly opinion with a sprinkling of notably shoddy opinion-driven pseudo-journalism.
And her "business" - which again, sold for 10x revenue in what was clearly an ideological acquisition - has produced work like the Gaza starvation piece that has been thoroughly debunked, most recently by Drop Site [1]. The FP never contacted any of the families. When Drop Site actually did the reporting and spoke to the families, they found the opposite of what Weiss claimed - these children were starving due to the blockade, and their pre-existing conditions made them more vulnerable to malnutrition, not less.
That's not "ground truth" journalism. That's lazy Google searches used to push an ideological narrative while calling it reporting. And now she's running CBS News - including 60 Minutes, the #1 news program in the country.
When the talent heads for the exits and ratings tank, will you concede Weiss was actually destructive to the organization? Or will you celebrate because you're on board with her ideological project regardless of the journalistic outcome?
[1] https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/bari-weiss-free-press-incompl...
Maybe he’s got a bone to pick with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe? Deleterious to the social order and all that.
Seconded. I didn’t know anything about her but figured I should, and found it well worth the time.
How strange:
- by one's own admission, doesn't know much about the matter (EDIT: correction, "didn’t know anything"), and yet
- still feels confident enough to voice one's approval for a given information source positioning itself as informative
Suppose it's a bad source—filled with sleights of hand and intellectual dishonesty for cheap laughs, for example. How would you know?
- by one's own admission, doesn't know much about the matter (EDIT: correction, "didn’t know anything"), and yet
- still feels confident enough to voice one's approval for a given information source positioning itself as informative
Suppose it's a bad source—filled with sleights of hand and intellectual dishonesty for cheap laughs, for example. How would you know?
Had you watched TFV before posting this, you’d have known that easily-verified receipts are shared as part of the overview.
A couple things:
1. I watched the video prior to posting.
2. Did you verify them?
1. I watched the video prior to posting.
2. Did you verify them?
You're doing the thing where you ignore all the substance to concern-troll about the source. The Oliver piece walks through extensively documented failures in Weiss's work - from Times colleagues contradicting her "civil war" claims in real-time, to Washington University finding her trans clinic allegations unsubstantiated, to families she featured publicly stating she misrepresented their stories. NBC, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Missouri Independent all did independent follow-up reporting that contradicted her work.
You're not engaging with any of the actual substance - you're just doing meta-commentary about whether people should trust sources. If you've got a substantive defense of her work that addresses the specifics of Oliver's piece, let's hear it. Otherwise this is just ad hominem.
You're not engaging with any of the actual substance - you're just doing meta-commentary about whether people should trust sources. If you've got a substantive defense of her work that addresses the specifics of Oliver's piece, let's hear it. Otherwise this is just ad hominem.
John Oliver is well-known for his shameless propagandizing even more so than Bari Weiss is. He particularly relies on lies of omission and attacking strawman arguments. This video is the pot calling the kettle black.
Moral smugness combined with a total lack of intellectual curiosity, dressed up as comedy, does not make for reliable analysis on anything.
Moral smugness combined with a total lack of intellectual curiosity, dressed up as comedy, does not make for reliable analysis on anything.
Way to answer a comment pointing out substance-free ad hominem with... substance-free ad hominem.
(2) A few I did, to learn more. Fun facts: The show has won multiple Peabody Awards which explicitly cite its work as "rigorous journalism disguised as comedy". Its large research/fact-checking team is largely staffed with people with journalism and policy background. Every word spoken is vetted for accuracy and potential liability by HBO's legal department.
(1) Did you find anything factually incorrect with the episode?
(1) Did you find anything factually incorrect with the episode?
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