CBS News is planning to shed dozens of staffers as top editor Bari Weiss reshapes the storied broadcast network, Business Insider has learned.
The network plans to announce the layoffs imminently, a source with direct knowledge told Business Insider.
Weiss foreshadowed these cuts some weeks ago, telling CBS News employees at a late-January all-hands meeting that a “tsunami of technological change” could force staffing changes at the network.
“I can’t stand up here and tell you that in a moment of incredible transformation that that’s not going to mean transformation of our workforce,” Weiss told staffers at the town hall.
When asked about specific personnel changes at the town hall, Weiss said CBS needs to shift away from undifferentiated “commodity news” toward exclusive reports that people “can’t get anywhere else.”
“If you can get what we’re selling in five other places, in 10 other places, in 100 other places — that’s probably not a thing we need to double down on,” Weiss said.
Eleven employees on “CBS Evening News” took buyouts last month as former “CBS This Morning” cohost Tony Dokoupil became anchor, multiple outlets reported. Business Insider could not independently confirm the figure.
CBS News is also growing in certain areas. The broadcast network brought on over a dozen new contributors in January, and Weiss has said she’s looking to hire more people who can help CBS transform into a digital-focused company.
“Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. I’m here to tell you that if we stick to that strategy, we’re toast,” Weiss said in late January.
Weiss was hired by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison to shake up CBS News, whose ratings have long trailed broadcast peers ABC and NBC.
The former New York Times editor, who founded anti-establishment news site The Free Press, was a polarizing choice for the top spot.
Her decision to delay a story that criticized President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts, as Paramount tried to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, prompted backlash inside and outside CBS News. In response to a question from a staffer about political bias, Weiss said she’s not “a mouthpiece for anybody.”
