Has the Media Reached the End of Its DEI Era?

Where’s all the Black journalists at now?” Rendy Jones, a freelance journalist, asked on X last week. He was referring to a wave of recent layoffs at CBS News, McClatchy, NBC News, Axios, and Teen Vogue, which was absorbed into Vogue. Jones is one of many in the industry who observed that these cuts have hit journalists of color in particular.

In late October, NBC disbanded all of its verticals dedicated to reporting on underrepresented groups, including Black, Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ+ groups, as first reported by Corbin Bolies at The Wrap. Shortly after, CBS laid off nearly a hundred people as part of cost-cutting measures planned by its parent company, Paramount, following a merger with Skydance. As part of those cuts, CBS gutted its Race and Culture team and canceled its CBS Mornings Plus and CBS Evenings Plus streaming shows. Trey Sherman, a producer who was laid off from CBS Evenings Plus, posted on TikTok that every producer fired from his team was a person of color, while everyone granted an alternate role was white. A veteran producer who was also laid off and spoke to CJR on the condition of anonymity confirmed that this was true, noting that the team had more people of color than most CBS teams.