Media

Fired CBS Staffer Says Only White Producers Survived ‘Bloodbath’ Layoffs

WHITEWASH

A producer for one of the network’s streaming shows said all the producers who were fired from his team were people of color.

The Free Press' Honestly with Bari Weiss (pictured) hosts Senator Ted Cruz presented by Uber and X on January 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Uber, X and The Free Press

A Black producer who worked for a CBS News show that was canceled on Wednesday said that every producer on his team who was laid off is a person of color, whereas the white producers are being reassigned within the company. Trey Sherman had worked since February as a full-time associate producer at the streaming show CBS Evening News Plus. He was fired Wednesday after the network’s new anti-woke editor in chief, Bari Weiss, announced CBS was canceling several shows, axing its race and culture unit, and laying off dozens of staff members. Sherman said in a video posted to TikTok that he had asked if it was possible to be relocated within the network despite his show being canceled. He was told that his bosses had advocated to keep him and his colleagues at the network, but that it hadn’t been possible. “It wasn’t until I went downstairs, thinking me and all of my colleagues had been laid off, that I found out it was only people of color,” he said. The Daily Beast has reached out to both Sherman and CBS News for comment.

A screenshot from an Instagram story by Trey Sherman saying every producer on his team who was laid off is a person of color.
Screenshot/Instagram/Trey Sherman

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