Back to basics in journalism

When Margaret Thatcher started in British ­politics, her maiden speech in the House of Commons advocated for the Admission of the Press to Meetings Act. She said her “first purpose in admitting the Press is that we may know how [taxpayer] moneys are being spent.”

Oh for the day when the media saw their primary duty as watching the public fisc on behalf of the hardworking taxpayer. Today many in the news media see “the most basic tenet of journalism [as] giving voice to the voiceless,” in the words of CBS News’ Sharyn Alfonsi. She’s the 60 Minutes correspondent behind the controversial ­segment on CECOT, the El Salvadoran prison to which the Trump administration deported illegal immigrants. Her story was paused by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss for giving voice to critics of the administration while not including any of its defenders.

Weiss is the vanguard of the new regime at CBS News, brought on in the wake of David Ellison’s acquisition of its parent company Paramount this past summer. One of her first major decisions was to announce five values that would guide the enterprise, replacing the prior 38-page handbook. The values reflect a return to an older, simpler time in American journalism, when journalists saw themselves more as neutral reporters than passionate advocates for “the voiceless.”

For instance, the new CBS News pledges: “We believe that our fellow Americans are smart and discerning. It’s our job to present you with the fullest picture—and the strongest voices on all sides of an issue. We trust you to make up your own minds, and to make the decisions that are best for you, your families and your communities.”

It will be nice to start getting different viewpoints while watching the news—that fair, unbiased attitude has been missing for far too long. For the past several decades, the broadcast TV networks have functioned as an arm of the Democratic Party. The Media Research Center reports that during 2025, the late night shows hosted 197 liberal guests to exactly two conservatives. Among partisan public officials, the count was 61 to zero. Let that sink in: Not a single Republican elected official apppeared on a late-night show in 2025. That’s not television in the public interest—that’s shutting out one party and one viewpoint from participation in the public debate. It reminds me of the old joke about Fox News: Rupert Murdoch started the channel looking to serve a niche market and found out his niche was half the country!

Sadly if unsurprisingly, Weiss has been targeted by dissidents within her own ranks who preferred the prior liberal advocacy model of news, the “deep state” within CBS. They are leaking internal documents that they think will undermine Weiss—my particular favorite was a recent leak of a directive updating CBS’ internal style guidelines regarding transgender individuals to use the terminology “biological sex at birth,” as though that disclosure would harm rather than help Weiss’ standing with many Americans.

Congress’ vote to defund NPR and PBS and the subsequent dissolution of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting point to the same underlying truth as the revamp at CBS: The American people know they have not been well served by the broadcast TV networks. Gallup notes trust in national news media is at an all-time historic low of 28%. As Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has joked, “More Americans trust gas station sushi than the legacy national media.”

After COVID-19, the Hunter Biden laptop, and a score of other screwups, skipped stories, and broadcasts dripping in bias, the American people are fed up. When PBS tried to reboot its public image after congressional defunding, it started with a six-part documentary series on the American Revolution with famous filmmaker Ken Burns, timed to capitalize on public interest in the nation’s 250th birthday. The show ended up a woke presentation of America’s founding, and PBS just reinforced its reputation for left-wing bias.

I am hopeful the new CBS will be different. Another of Weiss’ five values is “We love America.” That’s a good thing—two or three years ago, I would not have been surprised if CBS had announced it was starting every broadcast with a land acknowledgment. Most Americans love America as well—they deserve news and entertainment that is faith-inspired, family-friendly, and patriotic just as much as blue-state viewers want to enjoy the current claptrap on late night.

—Daniel R. Suhr is an attorney who fights for freedom in courts across America