CBS News Axes Race And Culture Unit Amid Paramount Layoffs
CBS News has disbanded its race and culture unit as part of sweeping layoffs at parent company Paramount Global that began on Wednesday. A former CBS News producer has accused the company of “race-based layoffs.”
Mass Layoffs and Restructuring
Last week, Paramount began laying off about 1,000 US-based workers, with plans to eliminate another 1,000 roles in the coming months. The 2,000 layoffs represent roughly 10% of the company’s global workforce. In a memo to employees, CEO David Ellison described the cuts as necessary to eliminate redundancies and “phase out roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities.”
The Paramount cuts have affected 100 CBS News employees, including eight on-air correspondents—all women, half of whom are people of color, according to The Independent. The outlet also reported that a male correspondent initially on the layoff list successfully appealed to new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, resulting in a female colleague being cut instead.
Also cut were the streaming editions of CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News, the network’s Johannesburg bureau, and its Race & Culture Unit, established in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd.
Allegations of Race-Based Layoffs
Former CBS News associate producer Trey Sherman alleged that the layoffs disproportionately affected producers of color. “Every producer from my team who was laid off is a person of color,” Sherman said in a now-viral TikTok video. He claimed that white colleagues were reassigned, while people of color were let go.
Sherman added that a CBS executive told him those who kept their jobs were individuals the executive had “worked with before.” He described the rationale as “racist,” arguing that, regardless of intent, the outcomes of such decisions amount to racial discrimination.
DEI Retreat and Editorial Shift
The layoffs come amid a broader rollback of diversity initiatives at Paramount. Earlier this month, NBC also scaled back its diversity-focused verticals, cutting staff across NBC BLK, NBC Asian America, NBC OUT, and NBC Latino. Those platforms will now be managed by just two senior editors, as The Wrap first reported.
In many ways, the changes were to be expected. In July, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media after it agreed to eliminate DEI.
Paramount Chairman David Ellison formally took over in August. Soon after, he appointed Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News. Weiss is a vocal opponent of DEI and founder of The Free Press, which Ellison acquired for $150 million. In a 2023 op-ed, she wrote, “It is time to end DEI for good.”
Image credit: CBS News
