CBS News is laying off about 6% of its workforce, with executives explaining the cuts as a difficult but necessary reallocation of newsroom resources.
The news division currently has about 1,100 employees, so dozens will be departing as a result of Friday’s cutbacks.
This is the second round of layoffs at CBS News since David Ellison took control of Paramount last summer.
“These are very hard choices and today is a difficult day,” CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and president and executive editor Tom Cibrowski wrote in a memo to staff.
The previous cuts in October, which hit almost every corner of the organization, from streaming to radio, largely predated the arrival of Weiss, whom Ellison personally installed at the top. But this round is more specifically a reflection of her vision.
In their Friday morning memo, Weiss and Cibrowski framed the cuts this way: “It’s no secret that the news business is changing radically, and that we need to change along with it. New audiences are burgeoning in new places, and we are pressing forward with ambitious plans to grow and invest so that we can be there for them.”
“That means some parts of our newsroom must get smaller to make room for the things we must build to remain competitive,” they wrote.
One hour later, in a second memo, the executives told staff that CBS News Radio will sign off the air on May 22. “While this was a necessary decision, it was not an easy one,” they wrote. “A shift in radio station programming strategies, coupled with challenging economic realities, has made it impossible to continue the service.”
Friday’s cutbacks are a familiar story — but one punctuated by what many view as a sharp editorial and ideological shift for the news division under Weiss’ leadership.
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