CBS News editor-in-chief argues in memo that network’s priority was ‘comprehensive and fair’ coverage

• Who is Bari Weiss, the new editor-in-chief of CBS News?

CBS News’ editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, defended her decision to pull a 60 Minutes episode on allegations investigating a notorious prison in El Salvador, arguing that the network’s priority was to ensure its coverage was “comprehensive and fair”.

In the memo sent to staff on Christmas Eve, Weiss said news organizations needed to do more to win back the trust of the American public and vowed that “no amount of outrage” would “derail us”.

‘We’ve been keeping a secret,’ she said on Instagram

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Towards the end of Tether, there is a song called Silk and Velvet; its sound is characteristic of Annahstasia’s debut album. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar and her extraordinary vocals – husky, expressive, elegant – are front and centre. The arrangement is subtle but not drearily tasteful: arching noise that could be feedback or a distorted pedal steel guitar, which gradually swells into something climactic before dying away. The lyrics, meanwhile, concern themselves with selling out: “Maybe I’m an analyst, an antisocial bitch,” she sings. “Who sells her dreams for money.”

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy; Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan; The Nancys and the Case of the Missing Necklace by RWR McDonald; Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino; Your Every Move by Sam Blake

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Canongate, £9.99)
The award-winning Australian writer’s third adult novel begins with a lone woman, Rowan, washed up on a remote island between Tasmania and Antarctica. Shearwater is a research outpost, home to the global seed vault created as a bulwark against climate catastrophe and to colonies of seals, penguins and birds. For eight years, Dominic Salt and his children have lived there, but dangerously rising sea levels mean that they, and the vault, will shortly be evacuated. Dominic cannot understand why Rowan has ended up on Shearwater, and Rowan is mystified by the absence of the scientists and researchers, about whom the family are tight-lipped – and the island’s communication centre has been mysteriously sabotaged, isolating them still further. McConaghy writes beautifully about the natural world and expertly ratchets up the tension, as mutual suspicion increases and secrets are gradually revealed. This is a powerful read that encompasses not only grief, sacrifice and perseverance in the face of disaster, but also survival strategies and their concomitant moral dilemmas.

Darkrooms by Rebecca Hannigan (Sphere, £20)
When chaotic kleptomaniac Caitlin returns to her small Irish home town after the death of Kathleen, the mother from whom she has been estranged for many years, she’s pleased to be welcomed by the Branaghs, friendly neighbours she remembers from childhood. Less pleasant is being forced to confront past traumas, including the disappearance of her nine-year-old friend Roisin from a local wood 20 years earlier. Caitlin feels guilty about this, as does Roisin’s older sister Deedee, who is sure that Caitlin is still hiding something. Having joined the garda to find answers that never materialised, Deedee is drinking heavily, making poor decisions and jeopardising both her job and her relationship, and both women desperately need closure … This impressive, if bleak, debut is a slow-burning but well paced story of shame, guilt, misplaced loyalty and generational trauma, the conclusion of which, once one is in possession of all the facts, has a heartbreaking inevitability.

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