How goes Bari Weiss’s stewardship of CBS News, America’s venerable old broadcaster? Well, about as well as one might expect from someone with no television experience appointed for her MAGA-friendly views in a bid to get parent company Paramount’s bid to buy Warner Bros Discovery waved through by the Trump administration.
And the tenure of editor-in-chief Weiss, a contrarian commentator who founded The Free Press, hit its nadir this week when Tony Dokoupil, the newly-appointed anchor of the flagship CBS Evening News show, ended his bulletin with a first-person piece to camera extolling the virtues of Marco Rubio more akin to an 11-year-old giving a class talk on why she loves Taylor Swift.
“He’s now the face of US foreign policy and President Trump’s pointman on Venezuela, all in addition to his roles as secretary of state, interim national security adviser and acting national archivist and US AID chief,” Dokoupil said, listing a range of jobs which Rubio is currently doing very badly.
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“And now AI memes have added to that portfolio, casting Secretary Rubio as the new governor of Minnesota, the new Shah of Iran, the prime minister of Greenland, the new manager of Manchester United, the head of Hilton Hotels and, highest of high honours of all, the new Michelin man,” he raved, to a sequence of knocked up images of Rubio having rummaged through Mr Benn’s dressing-up box.
“Now, back in real life, of course, these memes may not add up to much,” he conceded. “But for Rubio’s hometown fans – which are many out here in Miami – it is a sign of how Florida, once an American punchline, has become a leader on the world stage. Marco Rubio, we salute you! You’re the ultimate Florida man!”
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