by Kandiss Edwards
December 14, 2025
Layoffs which have swept by means of information organizations amid a rollback of DEI efforts.
Journalists of shade at main U.S. media retailers say they’ve been disproportionately affected by current layoffs which have swept by means of information organizations amid a rollback of variety, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
Trey Sherman, a Black affiliate producer with CBS Night Information Plus, instructed The Guardian that he realized in late October he was being laid off whereas white colleagues on his staff had been reassigned.
“We actually have white producers, we’ve white reporters who might have been laid off as effectively,” a colleague recognized solely as Mary stated within the article. “They needed to have identified that may not look good.”
Sherman posted a video documenting his expertise on TikTok, the place it went viral.
“Each one who will get to remain and will likely be relocated throughout the firm is white,” he stated within the video.
Sherman continues to clarify that the layoff choice was not based mostly on benefit however on familiarity, as his boss selected to maintain the staff he’d “labored with earlier than.”
Sherman stated that within the months following the layoffs, he started receiving messages from journalists at different organizations who had related experiences. He additionally famous most of the choices coincided with management adjustments and company restructuring.
Comparable patterns had been reported at NBC Information and Teen Vogue, the place complete groups centered on protection of racially and socially marginalized communities had been eradicated or absorbed into broader operations with little employees retained.
The layoffs are ongoing and more and more related to a political local weather that has focused DEI initiatives. Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Fee, introduced early within the Trump administration that the FCC would finish its DEI efforts and take away them as a finances precedence.
Some journalists cited within the article described the development as a part of a broader effort to decrease newsroom variety slightly than the results of remoted enterprise choices, saying the layoffs “fell alongside racial traces.”
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