Anna Wintour has offered a vote of confidence in newly appointed CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss.
“Obviously, she’s a very remarkable young woman with a very strong personality and a strong point of view,” Wintour told Variety on Monday night when asked about Weiss’ appointment at Only Make Believe’s 25th anniversary celebration in New York City. “And that usually makes a good leader.”
Wintour took over management of Vogue U.S. in 1988 and served in the role for 37 years. Chloe Malle, the daughter of actor Candice Bergen and director Louis Malle, succeeded her as head of editorial content at U.S. Vogue in September.
“My days are pretty full,” Winter said. He continues to oversee the fashion magazine’s global production as chief content officer at Condé Nast and global editorial director at Vogue.
When asked if she would ever quit her job, the 75-year-old fashion icon replied, “That day has not come yet.”
Make Believe is the only time Wintour has won the James Hammerstein Award at the annual charity event. Hosted by John Oliver at the Shubert Theater, the organization has raised more than $1.3 million to support its mission to bring interactive theater to children’s hospitals and special education facilities across the East Coast.
The day before, Oliver dedicated the latest episode of his HBO series “Last Week Tonight” to a deep dive into Weiss’ career. The late-night host highlighted an article from his news outlet, The Free Press, which he described as “very poorly fact-checked,” and questioned Weiss’ lack of experience in a traditional newsroom.
“Of course I knew in advance what they were doing with the Free Press, and that was fine,” Oliver told Variety. “The situation suddenly changes when you become the head of a news organization rather than a journalist.”
Weiss left mainstream publications to start Free Press in 2020 after a career as an editorial staff editor at The New York Times. Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison announced last week that the company would buy Wyeth’s Free Press for $150 million, a move that has sparked divisions across the media industry.
Oliver expressed deep concerns about the future of CBS News, but stressed that he wants to “separate” Weiss’ new role from the work that the network’s journalists do.
“The reason this is so concerning is because there’s great work being done at CBS,” Oliver told Variety. “They’re going to continue to do that job until the worst-case scenario, when they can’t do it anymore and people start getting fired or quitting. So until that point, I want to strongly defend the fact that there’s great work being done at CBS News, and I hope that continues under these circumstances. I’m worried that things will change.”
press. Donald Trump said Sunday that he thinks CBS News has “huge potential” after the Skydance-Paramount merger, which put David Ellison in charge of the media company.
“I’m sure he’s happy,” Oliver said. “I mean, he’s certainly happy for Ellison to take over Paramount and CBS. So this is more than that. So I’m sure he’s happy — if happiness is something he can fully attain on his own.”
Oliver concluded, “Generally, if he’s really happy about something, you have to question what it is.”
