NBC and CBS cuts hit race and culture verticals

On Wednesday, CBS News parent company Paramount — newly merged with Skydance — began laying off more than 2,000 employees, including at CBS News, which recently installed Free Press founder Bari Weiss as its editor-in-chief. The news comes about two weeks after NBC News laid off about 150 people. Layoffs are common everywhere these days, and particularly in media, but these two in particular are worth writing about because of one commonality: Who was laid off.

Back in September, Hanaa’ wrote about how diversity-related jobs in journalism have been declining in the years since the George Floyd protests, which media companies initially responded to with big promises to hire more people of color and cover underserved and marginalized communities more thoughtfully. The CBS and NBC cuts underscore Hanaa’s reporting, as it seems many of the cuts at both organizations targeted verticals related to race and diversity. Corbin Bolies reports in The Wrap that NBC disbanded four verticals that covered race or LGBTQ news; in a post on TikTok, former CBS News producer Trey Sherman said CBS laid off all the people of color on his production team while white staff were reassigned.

CBS News has reportedly disbanded its race and culture unit, which was formed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020

NBC News eliminated its editorial teams for NBC Asian America, NBC BLK, NBC Latino and NBC OUT earlier this month

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— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) October 29, 2025 at 9:46 PM

I founded @NBCBLK in 2015 & ran it for 3 years. It was crushing to see NBC cut the community verticals and their editors, all who served solid storytelling, hired unknown but talented writers, & provided a missing & nuanced lens to general news coverage. More @TheWrap https://t.co/d7N3Bh1tVW

— amber payne (@amberwaves) October 29, 2025

This was just posted by a CBS News producer on their Instagram stories.

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— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) October 29, 2025 at 5:44 PM

As Natalie Korach reports in Status, the cuts at CBS were wide-ranging; along with shuttering the race and culture unit and the Johannesburg bureau, CBS also made cuts to its relatively young news data team, its Los Angeles bureau, the streaming companion shows Evening News Plus and CBS Mornings Plus, and radio and TV production units across the country. CBS Saturday Morning co-anchors Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson were also laid off.

An NBC spokesperson told me that the cuts, which affected the whole organization, were precipitated in part by two news organizations — MSNBC (now MS NOW) and CNBC — moving to Versant. The spokesperson said the race and LGBTQ verticals will continue to exist, featuring content from across the newsroom, and that the majority of staffers on those teams will have the opportunity to fill open roles in the general newsroom. CBS did not respond to a request for comment by publishing time.