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Hey, good morning! Scroll down for the latest from Portland, OpenAI, Substack, MSNBC, Dominion, Billboard, and more. But first...

A new 'Eye on America'

Starting today, Bari Weiss is the editor-in-chief of CBS News, while continuing to run The Free Press as an "independent" brand within its new owner, Paramount.

The long-rumored deal was made official this morning with a WSJ story, a press release and a letter from Weiss.

It's a buzzy and risky move — the editor of a subscription-oriented web magazine with a clear editorial POV collaborating with one of the oldest broadcasters in America — and that's what makes it so interesting. Here's what we know:

 – Weiss will report directly to Paramount CEO David Ellison. Both Ellison and Weiss say the goal is to make CBS News the most trusted name in news.

 – Ellison, whose relationship with President Trump has been scrutinized all year long, sent a letter to all Paramount staffers this morning, bemoaning "partisan division and hostile disputes." He said "we aim to do our part in helping rebuild a society where our shared humanity unites us, and where our differences become a source of strength rather than division." I posted the full letter to X.

 – Editor in chief is a new title at CBS News, so staffers are wondering what it means. Paramount says it means Weiss will "shape editorial priorities, champion core values across platforms, and lead innovation in how the organization reports and delivers the news."

 – Tom Cibrowski will remain president of CBS News and will continue to report to George Cheeks, even as Weiss reports to Ellison directly. Paramount says "Cibrowski's decades of journalistic, operational, and broadcast experience provide essential continuity and expertise."

 – Weiss will meet with staffers in "the coming days and weeks." Her arrival is "being greeted with dread inside the news division," THR's Alex Weprin reports. He quotes a staffer imagining that Weiss "will be [Ellison's] eyes and ears inside CBS News."

 – Weiss said of Ellison and the Paramount leadership team, "They understand, as we do, that America cannot thrive without common facts, common truths, and a common reality."

 – CBS News desperately needs someone to supercharge its digital strategy. Maybe The Free Press can help. But staffers reading this morning's memos are left to wonder: What exactly do the new bosses think we're doing wrong? 

Weiss lists 10 core values 

In her first note to CBS News staffers, Weiss listed 10 "core journalistic values that have defined this profession since the beginning" and said "I will continue to champion them alongside you." Here they are:

1. Journalism that reports on the world as it actually is.

2. Journalism that is fair, fearless, and factual.

3. Journalism that respects our audience enough to tell the truth plainly—wherever it leads.

4. Journalism that makes sense of a noisy, confusing world.

5. Journalism that explains things clearly, without pretension or jargon.

6. Journalism that holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny.

7. Journalism that embraces a wide spectrum of views and voices so that the audience can contend with the best arguments on all sides of a debate.

8. Journalism that rushes toward the most interesting and important stories, regardless of their unpopularity.

9. Journalism that uses all of the tools of the digital era.

10. Journalism that understands that the best way to serve America is to endeavor to present the public with the facts, first and foremost. 

What happens to The Free Press?

"Our subscribers will still get the daily journalism they rely on: investigative reports, features, columns, podcasts, and more," Weiss told readers. "And The Free Press, which will remain independent, will be growing even faster within Paramount. We’ll be investing heavily in this community, and so many of the things we've long dreamed about will become possible much more quickly."

 >> According to the WSJ, Paramount paid about $150 million for the startup, a very healthy return for its investors. This morning a rep for Substack heralded the sale as "a milestone not just for The Free Press, but for the future of independent media."

The next big test for CBS?

As Semafor reported last week, the White House has been in talks with CBS about a Trump interview for "60 Minutes." Max Tani points out that "a Trump sitdown could prove to be a major test for the legacy news network’s new editorial lead..."

 >> BTW: NBC's story notes that the FCC is "still investigating whether CBS engaged in 'news distortion'" with last year's "60" interview of Kamala Harris. The raw transcripts and tapes refute the "news distortion" notion.

IN OTHER NEWS...

Press rights, partisan filter

Members of the media have been arrested in both Chicago and Portland recently. Members of the media have been injured in both New York and Portland in the past week. The disparate reactions from the federal government tell you everything about this moment in time.

When pro-Trump influencers were affected in Portland, Trump officials decried the incidents and pledged full support. "What we saw happen to that journalist last night will not happen again," AG Pam Bondi said after Nick Sortor was arrested. The DOJ also sent a letter to the Portland police department advocating for Katie Daviscourt.

But when journalists were detained in Chicago or shoved by ICE agents in New York, the response was the opposite: Trump officials defended the agents' conduct and offered no support or sympathy for the journalists. The takeaway: "Press freedom" matters if you're on Trump's "side."

📺 Trump's TV feed vs. the facts

Trump's attempts to send National Guard troops to Portland are the top story on many homepages this morning, now that a Trump-appointed judge has blocked the deployment twice. This fight is partly about law and partly about facts: US District Judge Karin Immergut said Trump's "war-ravaged" city rhetoric is "untethered to facts."

On Sunday, Trump repeatedly misgendered Immergut and lied about the city, falsely claiming "Portland is burning to the ground." As usual, it all comes back to his sources of info: "All you have to do is look at the television" to know it's "burning to the ground," he said, even though it's not.

My recommendation: Rely on local sources, such as OPB and Willamette Week, and reporters who are actually on the ground. The Atlantic's Isaac Stanley-Becker says the anti-ICE protest in Portland is "more like a carnival than combat." His headline: "Portland's 'War Zone' Is Like Burning Man for the Terminally Online." 

 >> The Bulwark's Sam Stein said it best, reacting to a DHS video of ICE operations in Chicago: "The clamp down is about producing content as much as anything else."

His weekend media grudges

Over the weekend, the president publicly pressured three different media companies over their content and conduct:

 – He complained about Al Sharpton's MSNBC show and said Brendan Carr's FCC "should look into the license of NBC, which shows almost exclusively positive Democrat content."

 – He blasted Fox News for booking a Democrat, Sen. Mark Kelly, on "Fox News Sunday," and said "Republicans are so tired of this fight with Fox always trying to be so 'politically correct!'"

 – He sided with Univision in the network's carriage dispute with YouTube TV.

Trump portrayed Univision as a crucial political tool for Republicans, which is striking to anyone who remembers the antagonistic relationship between Trump and Univision circa 2016. But as Hadas Gold wrote last year, Univision's new owners have warmed up to Trump, and now Trump has given them a big win.

A YouTube TV rep told me, "We remain open to negotiating an agreement that reflects their performance on YouTube TV." I wrote more here...

📉 Polling reality check

Trump claimed that Fox shows "refuse to put up Polls that correctly show me at 65% in popularity." He hasn't engaged in this kind of poll denialism in a while, so it's a revealing insight into his alt-reality. "Trump's overall approval rating, at 42%, is now back down to what it was in July, after hitting 44% last month," CBS said while releasing new #s yesterday.

 >> "When Biden talked about all the polls he insisted he'd seen that showed him ahead despite the many that showed him behind, it was taken as evidence of his disconnect and delusion about popularity," CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere points out. 

Trump keeps lying about AP case

Twice in the past week, Trump has totally distorted the status of The AP's press access lawsuit against the White House. "We won," he told military leaders last Tuesday. "They lost," he told Navy sailors yesterday, adding, "They got thrown out of court and are almost not allowed to cover me because of that."

The AP is pointing out that those claims are incorrect: "The court ruled in AP's favor — in a strong opinion in support of free speech — and the government is appealing," a rep said last night. While an appeals court handed AP "an incremental loss" in June, it's far from over, as no appeals court has ruled on the merits yet. There is an oral argument slated for Nov. 24...

WH dismisses 'SNL' season premiere

"SNL" started its new season by mocking Trump's desire to silence his late-night TV critics. "Daddy's watching," said James Austin Johnson, playing Trump in the cold open. His Trump quipped that "SNL" should have retired after season 50: "It's so sad to see something get old and confused and yet still demand your constant attention."

The White House claimed it was not paying attention: "Reacting to this would require me to waste my time watching it," WH spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told EW. "And like the millions of Americans who have tuned out from SNL, I have more entertaining things to do — like watch paint dry."

OpenAI changes Sora copyright tune

Today is the third annual OpenAI DevDay in SF, so it's likely to be another big day of OpenAI news. But let's follow up on Sora 2 for a moment, as it's being called "Silicon Valley's hottest new social network" and "an unholy abomination."

On Friday night, Sam Altman signaled (if you read between the lines) that he'd heard from Hollywood studios and agency chiefs about the copyright chaos he'd unleashed, and said the "opt-out" approach is... out. "We will give rightsholders more granular control over generation of characters," he wrote, so copyright owners can "specify how their characters can be used (including not at all)." He also mentioned sharing revenue with rightsholders down the road — once Sora conceives a way to make money...

How will studios and agencies respond?

"In his walk back note," Altman "struck a conciliatory approach," THR's Erik Hayden wrote. "Whether that will result in a new round of talks with stakeholders — studios, agencies, guilds, estates and more — or spur a round of lawsuits like the legal salvos lobbed by Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery against OpenAI rival Midjourney over its IP-infringing outputs may be the next question."

Briefly...

 >> "Today is MSNBC's first day apart from NBC." Tom Jones has a copy of the network's "new code of principles." (Poynter)

 >> "Fox Sports broadcaster and former NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez has been formally charged in Indianapolis after he was involved in an incident in which he was stabbed and left hospitalized." (FOS)

 >> "Fox tapped Brady Quinn, who is a college football analyst for the network, to commentate the Week 5 matchup between the Colts and Raiders." (NY Post)

 >> Dominion Voting Systems has settled with MAGA network One America News Network. (X)

 >> Live-streaming journo Mario Guevara arrived back in El Salvador on Friday after being deported from the US. (CNN)

T-Swift sets/breaks new records 

"In an unprecedented win for a theatrical release announced just two weeks ago," Taylor Swift's album debut event "topped the domestic box office with about $33 million domestically," CNN's Auzinea Bacon reports. I contributed nearly $100, and as a result, my kids were singing "Elizabeth Taylor" and "The Fate of Ophelia" all weekend long.

Meanwhile, "on its first day of release, Oct. 3, the set sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales (physical and digital purchases) across all versions of the album," marking the pop superstar's biggest week ever and "the second-largest sales week for any album in the modern era," Billboard's Keith Caulfield reports...

Entertainment notes and quotes

 >> On "SNL," Bad Bunny mocked right-wing backlash to his Super Bowl halftime gig. (CNN)

 >> The "KPop Demon Hunters" soundtrack has returned to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, "slaying its second week atop the list." (Billboard)

 >> "The Graham Norton Show" "has been renewed for three more seasons, meaning the series will reach its 20th anniversary on the BBC." (Deadline)

 >> "Amazon Prime Video has quietly removed artwork of James Bond after fans of the franchise noticed that 007 had been stripped of his firearm in all of the images." (Deadline)

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.