The Case of the ‘Magic Number’

CBS News and the death count in Gaza.

Early this month, Shayndi Raice, CBS News’s foreign editor, cut a mention of the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza while working on a piece about the anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. This week, in a virtual meeting of the foreign bureau, Raice delivered what Status—which obtained audio of the meeting—called “an uninterrupted fifteen-minute tirade” defending her decision and warning that “insubordination” is “legal grounds for firing.” When Holly Williams, the longtime foreign correspondent who reported the segment, pushed back, she and Raice engaged in a back-and-forth in which Raice referred to the death toll in Gaza—which is now above seventy-four thousand—as a “magic number.” Mentioning the number in the piece, she said, was “posturing” that was “not saving Palestinians.”