Ousted CBS News staffer takes to TikTok to accuse network of race-based layoffs

A former CBS News producer is accusing the network of implementing race-based layoffs after its parent company, Paramount, made widespread cuts.

“I just laid off from my job at CBS and every producer on my team who got laid off is a person of color,” ex-CBS News staffer Trey Sherman began a TikTok video on Wednesday. “Every person who gets to stay and will be relocated within the company is a White person.”

Sherman, who is Black, served as an associate producer for the CBS streaming program “CBS Evening News+” since February, according to his LinkedIn page, and also worked as an associate producer for the CBS Race & Culture Unit, both of which were gutted as part of the layoffs.

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Sherman claimed the “executive” who informed him that he was being laid off said he did everything he could to relocate staff but ultimately couldn’t.

“It wasn’t until I went downstairs thinking that me and all of my colleagues had been laid off that I found out that it was only the people of color,” Sherman said. “So I went one by one to my White colleagues. ‘Are you getting laid off?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you getting laid off?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you getting laid off?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you getting laid off? No.'”

“So I went back up to his office and I told him I think he lied to my face,” Sherman continued. “And come to find out it was not his decision to eliminate the show that I worked for, but he did get to decide who got to stay… So I told him, you said that you couldn’t get us relocated, only to find out that you were able to get some people relocated, and they all happen to be White. Am I supposed to believe that that’s a coincidence? And he said yes.”

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The unnamed executive went on to tell Sherman that he had kept on staffers that he had “worked with before,” blasting him for not making decisions based on merit and called it “racist.”

“I don’t care if you decided to keep people who have purple color hair. You decided to keep people who you had worked with before with — don’t even know if that’s true — if the outcome of that decision is racist, the action was racist. That s— is f—ed,” Sherman said.

Neither Sherman, CBS News nor Paramount responded to requests for comment.

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Paramount, now under new leadership with CEO David Ellison following the Skydance Media merger, implemented “approximately” 1,000 job cuts across the company, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Many CBS staffers involved in its weekend and livestream programming were heavily impacted. It was expected for weeks that Ellison would implement layoffs, and it was reported that the personnel decisions were made before Ellison tapped Bari Weiss as CBS News’ editor-in-chief earlier this month as part of Paramount’s $150 million acquisition of her outlet The Free Press.

“CBS Evening News” co-anchor John Dickerson also announced this week he will be exiting the network at the end of the year.

Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.