Associated Press/Sipa USA via AP

The New York Times gave an inside look on Friday at the controversial private dinner hosted by billionaire David Ellison in honor of President Donald Trump that was attended by top CBS journalists.

The dinner Thursday evening at the U.S. Institute of Peace was heavily criticized for its timing since Ellison is awaiting federal approval for his company, Paramount Skydance, to complete a $111 billion deal to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery.

The Times reported that Bari Weiss, CBS News’s editor in chief, joined Ellison at Trump’s table. Senior news correspondent Norah O’Donnell also attended, as did Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and top Trump aide Stephen Miller, as well as acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, “according to two people briefed on details of the closed-door event.”

The paper noted that Blanche currently oversees the Justice Department, and that the DOJ’s antitrust division will review the Warner Bros. acquisition that would put outlets like CNN and HBO “under Mr. Ellison’s control.”

“[I]t is rare for a national media organization to sponsor an event intended to fete the powerful politicians who are covered by its news division, and rarer still when it has a major transaction pending before the federal government,” the report said. “Invitations to the event, which were distributed by Paramount and listed Mr. Ellison as the host, described the evening as ‘honoring the Trump White House.'”

The report said that some CBS News journalists were “taken aback” by the dinner due to “the event’s potential to create a perception of coziness between the news division and the Trump administration.”

However, the following journalists were reported to have been in attendance:

Nellie Bowles, a journalist who is married to Weiss; Tom Cibrowski, CBS News president; Jan Crawford, chief legal correspondent; Nancy Cordes, chief White House correspondent; and Weijia Jiang, White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

Weiss was an op-ed staff editor at The New York Times from 2017 to 2020, and went on to co-found The Free Press, which was acquired by Ellison’s company for approximately $150 million last October. Although she has been criticized for steering CBS news coverage to the right, News magazine 60 Minutes “has aired some tough pieces about the Trump administration in recent weeks,” the report said.

Both Weiss and Ellison have said they are against promoting any sort of bias at CBS News.

Both Stephen Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are set to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday as guests of CBS News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!