Bari Weiss appoints editor viewed as pro-Israel in latest CBS News shakeup

Bari Weiss , the CBS News boss, has ousted a veteran bureau chief following tensions over coverage of the Middle East and brought in a new foreign editor who, according to sources, is more aligned with Weiss’s pro-Israel agenda. Paramount, which owns CBS, announced on Wednesday that it had hired Shayndi Raice, a Wall Street Journal editor who most recently served as the paper’s deputy bureau chief for the Middle East and north Africa , based in Israel. Raice will move to London, where she’ll oversee the network’s international coverage in a newly created position, the company said. In a social media post , Weiss called Raice “a scoophound reporter, a brilliant editor, and a clear-eyed leader”. The announcement followed reports that CBS News had ousted Claire Day, the London bureau chief and a 25-year veteran of the network, reportedly over clashes about the network’s coverage of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Iran. At the journal, Raice had a reputation as “much more sympathetic to the Israeli perspective than the Palestinian [one]”, a former colleague told the Guardian. Her approach often led to “friction” with colleagues, they added. Other sources said colleagues concerned with what they saw as a pro-Israel slant repeatedly flagged concerns to the paper’s standards team. Journal leadership, for instance, learned that Raice’s sister-in-law was a settler living in the West Bank, but concluded that it created no conflict. …