I find it almost inconceivable that you have voluntarily chosen to assume a position within one of the most punishing and unforgiving arenas of modern employment: stepping into a leadership role at a faltering and declining organization, specifically a dying legacy media institution. This moment represents the ultimate incarnation of what might be called the definitive glass cliff—an appointment so precarious that its very existence seems engineered to end in failure, no matter how competent or well-intentioned the individual accepts the challenge.
The truth is that management is an inherently painful occupation. It is punishing even under the most favorable conditions—when one enjoys the company of their team, operates in a low-pressure environment, and faces manageable expectations. However, the role you now occupy at CBS News could not be further removed from such a scenario. You are stepping into a cauldron of competing interests, a battleground where accountability always flows upward and downward simultaneously. Senior executives will inevitably hold you responsible for missteps originating from your subordinates, while those subordinates will just as eagerly fault you for decisions handed down by those above you in the hierarchy. And in the midst of this ugly symmetry, you will also bear the brunt of scrutiny for your own decisions—sometimes for no reason other than the cruel amusement of onlookers. You have voluntarily accepted a position whose fundamental purpose, stripped of euphemism, is to absorb endless blame and preside helplessly over the slow demise of traditional broadcast television news, an institution doomed to obsolescence regardless of any heroic efforts you might attempt.
You are, in short, standing atop the most treacherous glass cliff imaginable. Compare your situation to that of Marissa Mayer at Yahoo—except without the cachet of having emerged from Google’s hallowed halls; or to Nancy Dubuc at Vice—yet lacking her background of high-profile programming successes; or to Linda Yaccarino at Twitter—but minus the intricate web of advertiser relationships that once gave her leverage. The uncomfortable truth is that your appointment appears to serve a political purpose more than a journalistic one: a conciliatory gesture meant to mollify a hostile administration—the Trump administration, no less—that views the very concept of a free press with suspicion. Under such circumstances, your tenure will almost certainly consist of overseeing successive rounds of layoffs, each one eroding morale further, until either you resign in exhaustion or someone else decides your presence is no longer convenient. The endgame is predictable: another merger, another round of budgetary purges, and the eventual extinction of the entire news division.
In fairness, no individual could rescue CBS News at this stage. The network was conceived for a media ecosystem that ceased to exist years ago. Broadcast television is caught in its twilight era—its core audience aging out of relevance while the next generation consumes information through platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where visual immediacy and algorithmic virality replace editorial authority. These younger audiences harbor deep skepticism toward institutional journalism, perceiving it as remote, compromised, or antiquated. CBS, in particular, owns the distinction of commanding the oldest viewership in American primetime—a demographic more likely to attend a rally nostalgic for a vanished golden age than to defend the abstract virtues of journalistic integrity. While these viewers may remember Edward R. Murrow, they have no memory of you, no loyalty to your vision, and no inclination to forgive your missteps. Their primary interest is comfort, not crusades.
You now face the impossible dual mandate of claiming to rejuvenate the network by attracting younger audiences while your unspoken—and far more realistic—duty is to manage the company’s long decline. Success, in your case, cannot mean victory, only the postponement or moderation of inevitable defeat. To compound the difficulty, your responsibilities extend beyond navigating business strategy; you must also oversee that elusive, volatile species known simply as “Talent.” These are the celebrated faces who embody the institution in the public imagination, and they are infamous for their egos, sensitivities, and resistance to authority. Managing them demands exquisite diplomacy and an ability to disappear gracefully behind the scenes—qualities that, based on your professional history, you have not been required to demonstrate. Famous television personalities, as you will soon rediscover, thrive on control, validation, and adoration; they can erupt into public melodrama at the slightest perceived slight. When you attempt to offer guidance or editorial restraint, their retaliation will be merciless—measured not in whispers but in headlines.
Your prior experiences—writing opinion columns for prestigious newspapers and running a self-styled independent publication—have not equipped you with the delicate interpersonal skills that television management demands. Print commentary allows a writer to dominate the page unchallenged; running a newsroom, by contrast, requires charisma, collaboration, and credibility among peers who survived decades in harsher trenches. The journalists under you have invested their lives in reporting and broadcasting; they are seasoned professionals with battle scars earned through deadlines, field assignments, and breaking news storms. They recognize that you have never reported a story yourself, that your credentials are theoretical, and that your authority was conferred rather than earned. It would not surprise anyone if your very first internal memo—laden with jargon about maintaining “core journalistic values” while embracing “digital tools of the future”—elicited more skepticism than inspiration. Announcing plans to integrate artificial intelligence into newsroom workflows before your second week on the job only confirmed the perception that you misunderstand both journalism’s traditions and its internal culture.
You may believe that your alliances with powerful figures or your previous ventures will buffer you from criticism, but the opposite is true. Your association with controversial tech billionaires and partisan pundits makes you an object of fascination for media reporters who are already circling your appointment like sharks scenting blood. Each editorial decision, each personnel change, will be treated as evidence of ideological intent. Worse, the internet never forgets: your earlier clashes with figures such as Elon Musk—particularly after you dared to broach sensitive questions about China—have left digital footprints that will resurface amid every controversy. Opportunistic adversaries will frame you as hypocritical, compromised, or self-serving. Your reputation as a defender of “free speech” will be relentlessly tested once you occupy the very seat of institutional power you once condemned.
Even the platform you built as your personal crusade, The Free Press, offered you a comfortable form of risk-free rebellion. There, you could posture as a maverick speaking against the supposed decay of mainstream media, winning applause from subscribers eager to believe in intellectual independence. You could err spectacularly and suffer no consequence greater than a few mocking threads. Yet the world of broadcast journalism does not grant such indulgence. A single poorly vetted investigative report can evolve into a national scandal, as history already demonstrated with Dan Rather’s fateful Bush documents story—a misstep that consumed weeks of airtime and forever altered careers. Imagine the same magnitude of fallout directed at you, personalized and politicized, amplified by social media’s ceaseless appetite for outrage.
And such catastrophe is almost certain to occur. Given the charged political climate—especially with public sentiment turning sharply against Israel’s actions in Gaza—any editorial misjudgment, any perceived bias, will be weaponized against you personally. Your known stance on Middle Eastern issues will ensure that a significant portion of viewers and commentators label you a propagandist before your tenure truly begins. The paradox here is cruel: those most able to influence narratives about you are precisely those least likely to engage with CBS content. You will be blamed simultaneously by partisans who refuse to watch and by veterans of your own newsroom who resent your authority.
Yet, astonishingly, your greatest obstacle may not even come from within journalism itself but from the political forces entangled with your corporate overlords. It is transparently clear that your installation as head of the news division was a tactical maneuver—an offering meant to appease regulatory figures and partisans who demanded ideological concessions in exchange for approving the company’s pending merger. When business survival depends on political favor, editorial independence becomes collateral damage. Brendan Carr and his allies, empowered by these transactions, effectively hold your professional fate in their hands. The moment the ink dries on the acquisition deal, you become dispensable—a convenient casualty once your symbolic usefulness expires.
This is the perilous environment you have chosen to inhabit: one where every day brings a fresh potential downfall. Perhaps a single errant post on social media will ignite enough uproar to end your tenure. Perhaps an experiment with AI-generated content will detonate into a credibility crisis. A mass staff exodus could hollow your newsroom overnight. Or an internet demagogue, sensing opportunity, might incite an advertiser boycott that leaves your position untenable. In a corporate structure driven by political expediency rather than journalistic purpose, no amount of tactical finesse can indefinitely forestall the inevitable. You are surrounded by traps, both structural and personal, devised long before you accepted the offer.
So yes—congratulations on your enviable payout from selling The Free Press. Someone else owns it now, and with it, the platform that once gave you unchallenged voice. What remains is the daunting silence of authority, where every word you utter must carry the weight of an institution older than your entire career. You have traded independence for influence, certainty for chaos. And though this story’s ending may already be written somewhere in the quiet parlors of corporate strategy, the prologue—the fall from the glass cliff—will be entirely your own.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/business/793525/bari-weiss-cbs-news-glass-cliff
