John Oliver examines Bari Weiss' "irresponsible," "deeply misleading" work ahead of CBS News takeover

Oliver spent his entire 30-minute monologue explaining the dangers of running CBS News like a "pure opinion outlet."

By Emma Keates | October 13, 2025 | 11:30am

Screenshot: Last Week Tonight/YouTube

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New Paramount chief David Ellison has “resting just checked into the White Lotus face,” but that’s not even close to the most off-putting thing about him, according to John Oliver. The CEO promised to root out DEI at the company and installed a conservative ombudsman to evaluate “bias” in CBS’ news coverage, but he didn’t stop there. Recently, Ellison made the decision to buy controversial ex-New York Times columnist Bari Weiss’ The Free Press for $150 million and instill its founder as CBS News’ new editor-in-chief. It’s a move Oliver wasn’t thrilled about, to say the very least. It galled the Last Week Tonight host so much, in fact, that he spent almost his entire 30-plus minute monologue ragging on everything from her “self-aggrandizing” description of her resignation from The New York Times as a moment “heard ’round the world” to her egregious mis-characterization of Manhattan’s Upper West Side as merely “Seinfeld territory.” (“It’s the site of many other cultural touchstones!”)

Pivoting to address the gravity of the issue at hand, Oliver then spent a large chunk of his monologue pointing out a number of the ways The Free Press‘ stories—including impactful posts like an article alleging malnourished kids in Gaza were suffering from pre-existing health conditions other than starvation and another that made refuted claims about the families of trans youth—don’t hold up to journalistic scrutiny in their general mission to suggest that “the left has gone too far.” (“I am not saying the left never goes too far or is immune from criticism at all,” Oliver qualified. “But it can sometimes feel like The Free Press‘ conclusions can get out ahead of its evidence.”)

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“The truth is, we wouldn’t even have done this story were it not for the fact that Bari Weiss has just been named editor-in-chief of CBS News. And that feels different,” Oliver continued. “Because there are many opinion-heavy outlets out there, from left to right, and with low to high editorial standards. This show is, among other things, an opinion outlet. And while our staff works incredibly hard to research stories before we write something and vigorously check our facts afterwards, we’re also not the news.” Oliver wouldn’t want anyone running a “pure opinion outlet”—even someone he agreed with—to suddenly have control of the editorial direction of Face The Nation, 60 Minutes, and more, “but it is especially alarming to have someone doing it who has spent years putting out work that—in my opinion—is at best, irresponsible, and at worst, deeply misleading.”

And even that perhaps isn’t the worst thing Ellison has done. “It is not just about Bari Weiss being at CBS. It is about the fact that CBS is now under the control of someone who thinks that she and her editorial sensibility make her a good fit for the job, and who, incidentally, is now preparing a bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, home of CNN and, uh-oh, HBO. Which isn’t ideal,” Oliver continued of Ellison’s reported attempt to absorb his home network.

“It is worth keeping an eye out for subtle changes there, because while I’m sure many of CBS News’ good journalists will continue to do great work, if you start seeing people resigning or getting fired, or you start seeing stories that seem off in some way, especially if it involves the left going too far on a topic Bari Weiss cares about, it’s worth asking yourself why that might be,” he concluded. “Because unfortunately, the much bigger answer might be that a billionaire has chosen to inject contrarian, right-leaning opinion journalism into an American icon.”

Watch Oliver’s full monologue below: