After weeks of nerve-racking anticipation, Paramount finally followed through with its “tough day” of layoffs, which included letting roughly 100 CBS News employees go on Wednesday. All told, the sweeping cuts resulted in the loss of two streaming shows, the gutting of the network’s Saturday morning news program, and the disbanding of its race and culture unit.
On top of that, eight on-air correspondents and hosts were given their pink slips – and all of them are women, with half of them people of color.
According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, a male correspondent was initially included on the layoff list but was removed after he appealed directly to the new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, leading to another female correspondent being added to the list at the last minute.
Meanwhile, a CBS News producer who was fired as part of the network-wide cuts took to social media Wednesday to suggest that executives were engaging in “race-based layoffs,” claiming that every producer from his team who was laid off is a person of color while his white colleagues were relocated to other jobs.
While the layoffs have been anticipated since chairman David Ellison took over Paramount in August following its politically fraught merger with Skydance Media, they also take place after Ellison promised the Trump administration that he’d eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies once he took over the company.
And though a network source stressed to The Independent that the layoffs were in the works well before Weiss was hired earlier this month, her installation as the newsroom’s top editor – who reports directly to Ellison – also indicated the direction the media mogul was looking to take the network.
Representatives for CBS News and Weiss did not respond to requests for comment.
Even before she founded the anti-woke and “heterodox” digital outlet The Free Press, which Ellison purchased for $150 million this month, Weiss has been an outspoken critic of diversity initiatives and “wokeness” in the workplace and media. She famously quit her job as a New York Times columnist in 2020 over the paper’s “illiberal environment,” claiming she was a victim of bullying from her leftist colleagues over her “centrist” viewpoints.
“It is time to end DEI for good,” Weiss declared in a 2023 op-ed. “No more standing by as people are encouraged to segregate themselves. No more forced declarations that you will prioritize identity over excellence. No more compelled speech. No more going along with little lies for the sake of being polite.”
Following media reports that layoffs were expected this week, Ellison sent a memo on Wednesday morning to Paramount staff announcing the first round of cuts, which is estimated to include about 1,000 employees across the company. The media giant is expected to lay off another 1,000 staffers in the coming months.
“In some areas, we are addressing redundancies that have emerged across the organization,” he wrote. “In others, we are phasing out roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities and the new structure designed to strengthen our focus on growth. Ultimately, these steps are necessary to position Paramount for long-term success.”
Weiss, meanwhile, briefly addressed the impact of the layoffs on the network in the morning editorial call on Wednesday, telling staff that it was “an enormously difficult day for so many people who have given years of their lives to this company” and that her “door is open” to those looking for “support.”
While the network didn’t confirm the number of CBS News employees who were laid off, sources told The Independent it was about 100. The layoffs were also felt across the entire division, impacting the network’s foreign correspondents and bureaus.
With CBS News axing two streaming shows, stripping its Saturday morning program to the bone, disbanding its race and culture unit and eliminating its Johannesburg bureau, the network ended up laying off eight hosts and correspondents with on-air roles.
Among those let go were CBS Saturday Morning co-anchors Dana Jacobson and Michelle Miller. While the show will remain on the air for now, it will now be steered by executive producer Shawna Thomas, who leads the network’s weekday morning program.
Roughly two-thirds of the weekend show’s staff was also laid off, as the CBS Mornings crew will now double up their duties on the Saturday program. It has yet to be determined who will host the show moving forward, as the network revamps it.
Lisa Ling, who joined CBS News in 2023 after nine years as a CNN host, was also among the casualties on Wednesday. The former co-host of The View had largely focused on feature pieces and deep dives about American culture that were broadcast across the network’s platforms. She had been working on a CBS Mornings series about the “state of spirituality” in the US.
Other on-air correspondents who were released include Elise Preston, Nancy Chen, Janet Shamlian and Nancy Battiste, all of whom were based in the United States. Additionally, the network also laid off senior foreign correspondent Debora Patta, who had been with the network since 2013.
Patta, meanwhile, had been one of CBS News’ top reporters on the Israel-Hamas War, recently filing dispatches from the ground. Marking the two-year anniversary of the war, and as a fragile ceasefire agreement was being negotiated, she reported on the “solemn memorial events” taking place in Israel.
According to several CBS News staffers, Patta has been seen as a “very fair” reporter in covering the ongoing war in Gaza, largely sticking to the facts on the ground while steering clear of any emotional investment. Earlier this month, for example, she did back-to-back stories about a slain Israeli hostage’s mom urging leaders to end “pain in our region,” and Gazans orphaned by the war longing for their lost childhoods.
Patta, based at the Johannesburg bureau shuttered in the latest round of cuts, was told beforehand that she was “safe” and was not supposed to be laid off this week, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation.
Instead, sources said that Patta saw her name added after another male foreign correspondent apparently complained to Weiss – who is stridently pro-Israel and describes herself as a “Zionist fanatic” – that he wasn’t getting enough airtime nor was deployed to cover the Gaza war because of his support for Israel.
Notably, during Weiss’ first full week in her role as chief editor, she sent a missive out to all news employees requesting that they send her a memo describing “how you spend your working hours” and “what you’ve made (or are making) that you’re most proud of.”
She added in the note: “I’m also interested in hearing your views on what’s working; what’s broken or substandard; and how we can be better. Please be blunt – it will help me greatly.”
With the departure of Patta, who one senior staffer called “100% fair and accurate” in reporting from Gaza, the network’s coverage gap in the region will likely now be filled by Rome-based correspondent Chris Livesay, according to multiple sources.
The Independent has reached out to Patta for comment.
As for the specter of the network laying off only women on-air personalities on Wednesday, four of whom are people of color, it prompted the remaining staff members to express their disgust at the optics. “It is pretty appalling,” one network employee told The Independent. (John Dickerson, the current co-anchor of CBS Evening News, announced on Monday that he was departing the network at the end of the year.)
At the same time, Trey Sherman – a former associate producer on CBS Evening News Plus – took to social media on Wednesday to accuse his superiors of playing favorites in the layoffs, specifically around the issue of race.
Shortly after it was revealed that CBS Evening News Plus was canceled and the majority of its team had been let go, Sherman – who is Black and part of the LGBTQ community – posted a story to his Instagram account claiming that “every producer who was laid off on my team is a person of color” while “every producer on my team who will be relocated within the company is white.”
Sherman would go into further detail about his allegations in a follow-up video on TikTok, asserting that he had spoken to the executive in charge of the show about whether there was “consideration” about moving the program’s staff to other CBS News positions.
“He said, we advocated to keep the show. We advocated to try to get you relocated somewhere else, and we couldn’t,” Sherman said, referencing the head of special events and streaming, David Reiter.
According to Sherman, he then went to his white colleagues and began asking them whether they had been laid off, “only to find out it was only the people of color.” He added that while it wasn’t Reiter’s decision to eliminate the show, “but he did get to decide who got to stay.”
“I told him, you said you couldn’t get us relocated, only to find out you were able to get some people relocated, and they all happened to be white. Am I supposed to believe that’s a coincidence? And he said ‘yes,’” Sherman continued, noting that Reiter said he chose to keep people he had worked with before.
“So not only is it not based on merit,” Sherman concluded. “It is, in its result, racist. I don’t care if you decided to keep people who had purple-colored hair. You decided to keep people you had worked with before, which I don’t even know if that’s true. If the outcome of the action was racist, that sh*t is f***ed.”
Sherman declined to comment, noting that he is seeking legal advice before further speaking about this matter publicly.
Meanwhile, the brutal layoffs in the newsroom and the prospect of further cuts down the road have led to plummeting staff morale, which has only been exacerbated by Weiss’ fledgling tenure and Ellison’s simultaneous spending spree to build onto his burgeoning empire.
While the 42-year-old media mogul – whose father is Oracle founder and close Trump ally Larry Ellison – looks to cut $2 billion from Paramount’s ledger and lay off thousands of employees, he has spent billions of dollars on luring the UFC and other media assets to his company while aggressively attempting a costly takeover of rival Warner Bros. Discovery.
