Bari Weiss reminds me of Carly Fiorina, the Hewlett Packard boss that no one liked

[Miles Archer]

Back in my contractor days, Hewlett Packard had a reputation for being "a great place to work."

So imagine my surprise when I got an assignment there, and encountered people who were essentially very nice, but had a sort of consistent undercurrent of something...maybe not "anger" in the traditional sense, but what revealed itself over time was a widespread dislike for Fiorina and her presence in the company.

I'm looking at Bari Weiss and things like "CBS Boss Sends Lecturing Christmas Eve Memo Over ‘60 Minutes’ Chaos" and I am not seeing a boss who is liked or respected and admired ( https://www.thedailybeast.com/cbs-boss-bari-weisss-sends-christmas-eve-memo-over-axed-60-minutes/ ).

One time, on another job, a guy who was supervisor in another department was promoted to manager of my department. On Day ONE he rounded us all up, took us on a walking tour of the building, and pointed to a box that had been ripped open to access the contents, saying "I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS." This was a warehouse. I, and the other members of the department, were young, testosterone-addeled n'er-do-wells, and when he said that, I looked around, and we all had an "UP YOURS" look on our faces. In the days ahead, "I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS" impressions filled the warehouse air with glee.

My point is that employees...even the "good ones"...will ULTIMATELY UNDERMINE a rotten boss. The "tolerate" guy eventually pulled me aside and asked me why my fellow employees didn't like him. And I told him. HONESTLY, not to be a dick. I told him that the problems in our department existed long before he was put in charge and delivering an ultimatum to us was not the way to change things. Basically a "LIGHTEN UP FRANCIS" talk, which...to his credit...he took to heart and put into practice. After that he became a friend and as you might have guessed there were times when I'd say "I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS" in a stern voice and he chuckled while looking like he wanted to strangle me.

In the wake of esteemed journalists with long tenures bailing on Bezos' transformation of The Washington Post into the MAGA Times, I don't thiink there are many long-term CBS employees who give a fuck about a Trump fangirl installed at the top by Trump and the Ellisons.

I think you'll see more leaks, more dissention, more departures, because life is simply to short to suffer under a shithead boss. Whether the push-back is direct or takes a more passive aggressive form, I don't think the future is bright for Weiss at all.

[Intractable]

1. Compared Bari Weiss, Carli Fiorina got much more work done ...

on her face, that is.


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But give Bari some time to catch up.

[Miles Archer]

2. Fiorina's fate was sealed with that "No one has a God-given right to a job" quote

Weiss seems to be content walking that same path, so "good luck to her."

[paleotn]

9. At least the plastics guys were competent and she doesn't look like The Joker's sister.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Weiss is Jesse Helms, reincarnated

CBS News has been conquered by rathole Republicans.

[SheilaAnn]

4. I have an inkling ole Bari will be gone by the middle/end of January. Execs cannot be happy with the way CBS is being

portrayed and Bari becoming the news. Cannot wait.

[Miles Archer]

5. She's attracting daily negative headlines like a magnet

No matter how arrogant the Ellisons are, bad publicity is bad publicity, and CBS / Paramount is not an invincible entity. Mess with the audience aggressively enough and that audience will move on.

[Takket]

6. I think Megyn Kelly is gunning for her job

Last edited Thu Dec 25, 2025, 10:48 AM - Edit history (1)

I noticed Kelly has been attacking her lately, and she has to see a great opportunity for herself to do what Ellison HOPED Weiss could do. Which is really turn CBS into a right wing propaganda machine, but not destroy their ratings and any credibility in the process.

Weiss is obviously MAGA but what she is not is a journalist. She just wants to host "roundtables" about "free speech" which just conveniently don't include anyone speaking to the topic of the debate from the left. This is how she pushes MAGA but tries to disguise it as real "centrist" journalism. This is what Ellison wanted but Weiss is just, frankly, too stupid and clueless about running a newsroom to pull off.

Kelly has actually worked in real newsrooms and I don't know if she can pull off what Ellison and drumpf want, but she'd be a hell of a lot better at it than Weiss.

I think Weiss won't make it through 2026.

[NCDem47]

13. Kelly was a disaster at NBC and left after two years

Viewers were repelled.

Of course...that was a different time.

Heads of news divisions should be in the background and not do double duty as on-air talent.

But yes...I've maintained that Weiss thinks she can crack the code to get viewers back to CBS for "news." This is a set-up for failure and she'll be gone or demoted to podcast land for some CBS streaming news platform in the near future.

[Paladin]

7. Apt comparison.

Glad you were able to "convert" that bad boss; doesn't happen very often, in my experience...

[Miles Archer]

10. Sometimes we have to approach people in the right way, at the right time.

It's all timing and attitude. You're right, I did beat the odds with him. And we became friends. I gave him non-stop hell but did it in a way that he was always IN ON THE JOKE, and not the "butt of the joke."

One time he said he was going to quit. The president of the company approached me about taking his job. Told him I didn't want it and as fate would have it he decided to stay. I wrote and edited the company newsletter. I did a headline "RAY STAYS!" and listed all of the fake merchandise that we'd be selling...Ray Stays t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc. Once again, he laughed his ass off but that didn't mean he didn't want to punch me right in the snout.

[paleotn]

8. Good analogy. Weiss will get undercut at every turn.

She's there for one reason only, to placate Trump. But that will never work, even in MSM, so she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. In my mind, being dumb enough to take such a job is pretty telling. It's bad enough being a "mouth piece" for Donnie, but she's smashing her own career in the process. Once all this is done, everything else she's accomplished will be tarnished and she'll be remembered just for this. It won't be a pleasant memory. In the short term, CBS rank and file will make this very difficult for her and rightly so. A lot like Fiorina and the wreckage she caused at HP / Compaq and her own legacy.

On people like Fiorina, I'm convinced that leadership cannot be taught. Not soup to nuts. It can be refined, but for the basis of leadership, you've either got the knack or you don't. A lot of management got there simply by yapping. They say the right things, do the insincere social bit that I despise, and move up. But they have little talent for actually DOING things. Or actually LEADING others effectively. They just talk about it, endlessly.

It seems kind of rare that the ability to yap, do, and lead coincide in one person. Best boss I've had could do 2 of those well. He was great at the talking / social bit, but was smart enough to know what he didn't know and freely admit it. We were the experts. What did we think? What did he think given his skill set? Synthesize all that and decide the best course of action we could all live with. The effective leadership part. Particularly with direct reports who were well seasoned and very good at what they did.

[Miles Archer]

11. You're right, leadership can't be taught.

The workers ALWAYS WIELD the TRUE power.

I had ANOTHER boss who was beyond awful. She lied about her qualifications when she was hired. One time I made the mistake of telling her I was interested in career advancement. She looked right at me and said "Well, don't look at MY job, because I'm not going ANYWHERE."

I hinted at my departure when speaking with a manager in the department. The VP called me into his office and asked me what was going on. I basically said she didn't know what she was doing, people didn't like her, and that was it. His gaze narrowed and he looked at me and said "A lot of things could happen. She could fall out of an airplane."

THAT IS A DIRECT QUOTE.

They fired her several days later.

[RainCaster]

12. I remember Carly the same way

Somebody who took a great company and turned it into a crap place to work while you await retirement.