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Erika Kirk is expected to participate in a televised town hall with CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
The out editor-in-chief of the once highly-regarded news operation will talk with Erika Kirk on December 13.
CBS News is putting its newly appointed lesbian editor in chief, Bari Weiss, at the center of its editorial reinvention with a televised town hall featuring Erika Kirk, the widow of recently assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk, scheduled to air on December 13. The event, first reported by The Guardian, will be recorded in New York and framed as a conversation about “grief, faith, politics, and more.”
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The program marks Weiss’s first major on-air appearance since assuming leadership of the newsroom this fall, following the acquisition of her media outlet, The Free Press, by Paramount Skydance. As The Advocate has reported, Weiss’s rise represents a dramatic reshaping of the network: she is one of the few out queer people to lead a major U.S. broadcast newsroom, yet her critics note that she has built her brand by attacking “woke” politics, opposing gender-affirming care, and championing viewpoints that LGBTQ+ advocates say marginalize trans and nonbinary people.
Related: Bari Weiss is the queer woman set to control CBS News
Her appointment has been polarizing. Weiss first became a national lightning rod in 2020 after resigning from The New York Times with a public letter accusing the paper of ideological conformity. She then built The Free Press into a platform for what she called heterodox journalism — a mix of centrism, cultural skepticism, and appeals to readers disenchanted with progressive media ecosystems. Supporters see her as an independent voice capable of shaking up a stagnant industry; detractors describe her as a culture warrior elevated into a role that demands nonpartisan rigor.
The decision to foreground Kirk in Weiss’s first CBS broadcast underscores those tensions. Kirk’s late husband was a defining figure of contemporary conservative activism, and she has since stepped into a public role as the new CEO of Turning Point USA, the organization shaped by the movement he helped build.
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