Ex-CBS producer alleges ‘race-based layoffs’ after – Business News
A former CBS News producer accused the community of “race-based layoffs” after company father or mother Paramount Skydance launched sweeping cuts, claiming in a viral TikTok that each producer laid off from his staff was a individual of coloration whereas white colleagues had been reassigned.
Trey Sherman, who’s black, served as an affiliate producer for “CBS Evening News+,” a streaming extension of the community’s flagship broadcast that was among the many packages shuttered during the layoffs.
He additionally labored for CBS’s Race and Culture Unit, which was dissolved in the identical spherical of cuts that affected about 100 staffers throughout the division.
Trey Sherman, who’s black, served as an affiliate producer for “CBS Evening News+.” @treymous/TikTok
Sherman mentioned in a TikTok posted Wednesday: “I just got laid off from my job at CBS, and every producer on my team who got laid off is a person of color. Every person who gets to stay and will be relocated within the company is a white person.”
Sherman went on to explain a tense exchange with a CBS government who knowledgeable him of the choice.
He mentioned the manager claimed to have executed every thing he might to relocate affected staffers however later admitted that those that saved their jobs had been people he had “worked with before.”
Sherman referred to as that rationalization “racist,” arguing that, regardless of intent, the end result amounted to racial discrimination.
Sherman mentioned he found the disparity after talking individually together with his former colleagues.
“I went one by one to my white colleagues — ‘Are you getting laid off?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you getting laid off?’ ‘No,’” he recounted.
He mentioned he confronted the manager afterward, accusing him of mendacity in regards to the layoffs being evenly distributed.
The former producer additionally alleged that the manager instructed him the layoffs weren’t based mostly on benefit however on familiarity — preserving workers he had beforehand labored with.
“I don’t care if you decided to keep people who have purple-colored hair,” Sherman mentioned in his video.
“If the outcome of that decision is racist, then the action was racist. That s— is f—ed.”
He additionally labored for CBS’s Race and Culture Unit, which was dissolved in the identical spherical of cuts that affected about 100 staffers throughout the division. @treymous/TikTok
A CBS News spokesperson declined to remark.
A community insider instructed The Post that the layoffs affected more than 100 workers throughout CBS News, touching practically each show and division, together with the show that employed Sherman.
The Johannesburg bureau has been shuttered, with protection of Africa now shifting to London, the insider famous.
Two streaming packages — “CBS Mornings+” and “CBS Evening News+” — have been canceled, and the CBS Saturday Morning staff has been folded into the weekday employees because the weekend program undergoes a full reformat.
Corporate father or mother Paramount Skydance’s overhaul of CBS News comes amid a broader company shift away from range, equity and inclusion packages (DEI) that CEO David Ellison reportedly promised to dismantle following the merger.
The community’s Race & Culture Unit — created within the wake of the 2020 rioting touched off by the death of George Floyd — was among the many divisions eradicated within the newest spherical of cuts.
The transfer aligns with the views of new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who has long criticized DEI initiatives as “illiberal” and “anti-merit.”
In a 2023 op-ed, Weiss wrote that it was “time to end DEI for good,” rejecting what she described as “forced declarations that you will prioritize identity over excellence.”
The CBS News community insider instructed The Post that planning for the cuts had been underway for months.
While Weiss formally started her position as editor-in-chief three weeks in the past, the selections on job cuts had been made previous to her arrival, based on the insider.
One of the casualties of the mass layoffs at CBS News is a South Africa
The Post has sought remark from Sherman.
Sherman apparently isn’t the one fired CBS News worker who’s nursing a grievance towards the community.
Debora Patta, a veteran international correspondent based mostly in South Africa, is contemplating taking legal motion towards CBS News after she was laid off, The Post realized earlier this week.
The British publication Independent reported that Weiss personally intervened to avoid wasting the job of a male international correspondent who appealed on to the editor-in-chief by noting that he was sympathetic to Israel.
The Post has realized that the male correspondent in query is Chris Livesay, the Rome-based reporter.
Instead of firing Livesay, Weiss as an alternative put Patta’s title on the record of workers who’re to be dismissed.
