Another day, another public relations headache for CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
Following the revelation that new CBS News contributor Peter Attia had a lengthy and crude correspondence with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the network has pulled a segment featuring the anti-aging researcher and physician from an upcoming repeat of 60 Minutes.
As first reported by The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr, the network “shelved plans to re-air” an interview correspondent Norah O’Donnell conducted with Attia for the October 25 episode of the Sunday newsmagazine, which was set to be part of a re-run CBS is airing this Sunday as the program will go up against the Super Bowl.
That episode, which saw O’Donnell discussing Attia’s “Medicine 3.0” plan that the health influencer developed to supposedly help his patients avoid chronic disease later in life, was aired before both the latest release of the Epstein files and Weiss’ announcement last week that Attia was one of 19 contributors she had hired for the network.
The network will replace the Attia segment with another piece during Sunday’s broadcast. The Independent has reached out to CBS News for comment.
Meanwhile, amid the fallout over Attia’s name appearing at least 1,700 times in the Justice Department’s massive Epstein documents dump last week, Weiss has pushed back against internal pressure at the network to dump the so-called “longevity expert” as she doesn’t want to be seen as caving to the “cancel culture” mob.
In the newly surfaced emails between him and Epstein, Attia told his late pal in 2016 – years after Epstein was convicted of soliciting underage prostitutes – that he “confirmed” that “P***y is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.”
Another exchange from June 2015 featured Epstein replying to Attia’s email with the subject line “Got a fresh shipment” by writing “me too” alongside a redacted photo. “You [know] the biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul,” Attia responded in another email.
The emails included in the latest Epstein tranche also suggested that Attia – who is married with three children – ignored his wife’s pleas for days to visit the hospital where his sick infant son was being treated in order to hang out with the convicted sexual predator in 2017.
In a lengthy apology that he shared on X this week, Attia maintained that while he was “not involved in any criminal activity” as it pertained to Epstein, he was taking accountability for some “embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible” emails.
“Reading that exchange now is very embarrassing, and I will not defend it,” Attia wrote about the “me too” exchange email chain with Epstein. “I’m ashamed of myself for everything about this. At the time, I understood this exchange as juvenile, not a reference to anything dark or harmful.”
Attia also said that he “never witnessed illegal behavior and never saw anyone who appeared underage” while in Epstein’s presence, adding that he “was never on his plane, never on his island, and never present at any sex parties.”
Meanwhile, even though Attia has parted ways with wellness brand David Protein over the brewing Epstein controversy, Weiss – the founder of anti-woke digital outlet The Free Press who was tapped to run CBS News in October despite no broadcast journalism experience – has been reluctant to cut ties with the anti-aging guru.
“Editor in chief Bari Weiss — a longtime critic of cancel culture — was said to be initially reluctant to do so, according to a source with knowledge of the matter,” the New York Post reported this week.
TheWrap also noted that while the network was expected to get rid of Attia from its stable of contributors, tensions began simmering inside parent company Paramount as Weiss – who once wrote that it’s “our duty to resist the crowd in this age of mob thinking” – pushed back against executives’ desire to fire him.
Status News, however, pointed out that Paramount Skydance – which is run by David Ellison, whom Weiss directly reports to – “is deferring to Weiss, that the decision rests squarely with her, and that the sense internally is she does not want to be seen as capitulating to the ‘cancel culture’ mob.”
With Weiss’ editorial decision-making sparking intense scrutiny and criticism in recent weeks, whether it is the fiasco surrounding the spiked “Inside CECOT” 60 Minutes segment or the rocky rollout of Tony Dokoupil’s debut as CBS Evening News anchor, it’s no surprise that her current backing of Attia is also coming under fire.
Noting that the “Attia mess is yet another damning indictment of Bari Weiss’ judgment as editor in chief of CBS News,” a CBS News staffer told The Independent that “she has allowed this to metastasize into a public embarrassment” that reflects more on her than Attia at this point.
“By clinging to Attia, Bari has effectively argued that association with a convicted sex offender is a tolerable liability if it complicates her preferred narrative about so-called cancel culture. That is an astonishing position for the editor in chief of a major news organization to land on,” the staffer further stated.
“This episode also exposes a deeper problem. Bari Weiss consistently confuses personal ideology with editorial stewardship” the staffer continued. “Running a newsroom is not a podcast argument or a cultural provocation exercise. It requires restraint, judgment, and an instinct to protect the institution even when it cuts against your own beliefs.”
“She is naive to all of this,” another PR pro told Status. “The first email circulated on Saturday and it was immediately clear what needed to be done. You have to get ahead of these things, but she seems to think she can outmaneuver negative news cycles and instead they just snowball.”
Still, there are some defenders in Weiss’ media over the way she is handling the Attia situation.
“What Weiss is doing—and what critics seem determined to ignore—is modeling a standard that is different from, and arguably fairer than, what a mob immediately demands. It’s about the severity of the sentence not just the crime,” Mediaite founder Dan Abrams wrote in an op-ed on Tuesday.
“This sort of restraint can be challenging. If she decides to keep Attia, she will be condemned within and without CBS but it will also be a brave decision — precisely the sort of bravery, love it or hate it, that landed her in this position in the first place,” he concluded.
