Bari Weiss isn’t Barbra Streisand or some Hollywood diva who needs a trail of bodyguards to walk into a room. She shouldn’t need six of them either. But when the new CBS News chief showed up at an event in New York surrounded by security, I can’t say I blame her.

When Speaking Freely Comes With a Price Tag

Because this isn’t just about one journalist. It’s about the country she lives in, the same one we all live in, where words can get you followed, threatened, or worse.

Newly installed CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss had a phalanx of six bodyguards in New York City on Tuesday as she has faced heightened security concerns, a source with knowledge of the matter told The Post.

Weiss had guards described as “beefy” and “chiseled” as she attended a conference at the New York Historical Society put on by private equity giant RedBird Capital.

The source said the detail was hired because “there are enhanced security concerns.”

“It’s highly unusual for a news executive to have six bodyguards,” a former network exec told The Post. – New York Post

It seems the former network exec missed the part where people are getting shot for their opinions.

How We Arrived Here

Bari Weiss first hit my radar when she and journalist Matt Taibbi appeared before Congress to discuss the “Twitter Files,” internal records showing how social media executives and government agencies shaped what the public could and couldn’t see online. Since then, Weiss has only grown more visible, taking over CBS News after her outlet, The Free Press, was bought by Paramount Skydance.

Now she’s walking into events with a full security detail, and that tells you everything about where we are as a society.

It used to be that reporters needed a notebook and thick skin. Now they need a team of guards who can take a punch or a bullet. When a CEO like Brian Thompson of UnitedHealthcare can be shot on a Manhattan street, or when a conservative figure like Charlie Kirk can be murdered at a college event, the question isn’t why someone like Bari Weiss has bodyguards. It’s why more high-profile people don’t.

Even J.K. Rowling has faced death threats for stating what used to be common sense. And that’s the point. Disagreement has been turned into danger.

Inside The CBS Storm

If you need proof that Bari Weiss might actually need those bodyguards, look no further than her own newsroom. Reports say she startled the 60 Minutes staff by asking why the country thinks they’re biased, a question that apparently caused more panic than reflection. One critic even accused her of being “hired to gut a newsroom she’s never worked in.” She’s also trying to plug holes in a leaky ship, where leaks to the press have become routine. When that’s the daily atmosphere, a little extra security starts to make sense.

Maybe the real story isn’t that Bari Weiss has security. Maybe it’s that modern journalism has become such a hostile place that even insiders know to watch their backs.

Of course, no media shake-up is complete until a celebrity pundit weighs in.

John Oliver has built a career punching up at the powerful, or so he tells himself. Yet this week he took a break from roasting politicians to punch sideways at Bari Weiss, a woman daring to run a newsroom differently.

John Oliver slams Bari Weiss’ takeover of CBS News:

“I wouldn’t want anyone who led a pure opinion outlet, not even one that I happened to agree with, to suddenly be running CBS News. But it is especially alarming to have someone doing it who has spent years putting out work… pic.twitter.com/4k75gWzFD7

— Variety (@Variety) October 13, 2025

Maybe Oliver should look in the mirror. He’s spent a decade turning political lectures into comedy bits and calling it journalism. If Bari Weiss is “deeply misleading,” what does that make a man who builds his career on outrage dressed as entertainment?

The Culture That Made This Necessary

The Left spent years excusing rage as virtue. They called riots mostly peaceful and turned moral outrage into a political brand. You see it in Jen Psaki joking that Usha Vance should “blink four times” if she needs rescuing, as if being married to a Republican is a hostage situation. And you see it in Keith Olbermann, who tweeted that he hopes Trump is treated worse than Lincoln and told a critic, “You’re next, motherf—er.” These are the people lecturing the country about decency.

If Bari Weiss wants to hire security, she has every reason. It isn’t overreacting. It’s awareness. Just look at Democratic operative Jay Jones, the one caught texting about wanting to put two bullets in an opponent. That kind of talk doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s the culture they created.

So when someone like Bari Weiss, who has spent her career questioning the narrative, decides to surround herself with security, it’s not paranoia. It’s pattern recognition. She knows the score.

Bari Weiss didn’t make a statement. She made a decision. And probably a wise one.

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