The CBS News operating today is hardly the same CBS News that was operating a year ago. In the intervening 12 months, parent company Paramount settled a lawsuit President Donald Trump had filed over a 60 Minutes story — a suit many legal experts had deemed unwinnable — as it sought approval for a merger with Skydance. David Ellison, a Trump ally at the helm of the newly-created Paramount Skydance, then hired Bari Weiss as CBS News’ editor-in-chief, and she began reworking many of CBS News’ flagship programs.
Under the regime change, CBS Evening News relaunched with Tony Dokupil as anchor — and backlash aplenty — and 60 Minutes seems to have lost the editorial independence upon which it had relied for decades. Now Media Bias/Fact Check considers CBS News biased toward the right-center, with credibility downgraded from “mostly factual” to “medium” due to “emerging evidence that CBS News is censoring content unfavorable to the government.”
Along the way, CBS News has parted ways with dozens of workers in firings, resignations, and at least two rounds of layoffs. And many ex-employees have spoken out about the plight of the news organization on their way out. Read more below.
Bill Owens
Owens, who had been 60 Minutes’ executive producer since February 2019, announced his resignation from the show in April 2025. “Over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience,” he said in a memo to colleagues, per The New York Times.
Wendy McMahon
McMahon resigned the following month, giving up her job as president and CEO of CBS News and Stations. “The past few months have been challenging,” she said in a letter to staffers, according to Deadline. “It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It’s time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.”
John Dickerson
In October 2025, Dickerson revealed he’d soon leave CBS News, just months after becoming a co-anchor of CBS Evening News. In his announcement, the journalist said he was “extremely grateful” for his time with CBS News, but he previously criticized the network’s settlement with Trump. “Can you hold power to account after paying it millions?” he said on CBS Evening News Plus that July, per The Guardian. “Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust?”
Lisa Ling
Ling told followers in an October 2025 video that she’d been let go at CBS News. “So yesterday, I got a call from CBS that I was among the massive layoffs at the network,” she said in an Instagram video. “Now this didn’t entirely surprise me because I wasn’t a full-time employee, but rather a contributor, and we’re easy to cut. My heart, though, goes out to all of those who had been working at the network for many, many years.”
Maurice DuBois
Dickerson’s CBS Evening News co-anchor followed his lead: DuBois said on social media in December 2025 that he’d, too, be leaving CBS News, but it seems he hasn’t aired any grievances. “It has been the honor of a lifetime,” he wrote on Instagram. “I’ll leave filled with gratitude, cherished relationships, and amazing memories.”
Alicia Hastey
In a note to coworkers in February 2026 (shared online by New York Times reporter Ben Mullin), Hastey said she had accepted a buyout. And the then-CBS Evening News producer said a “sweeping new vision” at the network meant that stories might be “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.”
NEW: “CBS Evening News” producer Alicia Hastey sends a bombshell farewell note:
Stories are “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations.” pic.twitter.com/4orZmbkqRI
— Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) February 12, 2026
Mary Walsh
Two weeks later, Walsh bid farewell to CBS News, where she had become a producer after in a near-half-century career at the organization. “It’s too soon, even after 46 years,” she wrote in a memo obtained by The Guardian. “But maybe it’s for the best. We’ve been told to aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum. Honestly, I don’t know how to do that.”
Scott MacFarlane
MacFarlane, then a justice correspondent with CBS News, shared his exit memo with colleagues and then with social media followers in March 2026. “For the next phase of my career, I look forward to some independence and finding new spaces to share my work in line with my personal goals,” he explained on X.
UPDATE: i just shared this note with my colleagues:
“To my incredible colleagues at CBS: I want to personally let you know that my work will soon no longer appear on CBS News. This is my decision, and I appreciate the bosses at CBS for understanding it.
I will always value…— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) March 9, 2026
Anderson Cooper
Cooper left 60 Minutes in May 2026 after two decades of serving as a correspondent on the newsmagazine. “I hope 60 Minutes remains 60 Minutes,” he said in his last segment, in comments that reportedly infuriated Weiss. “I hope the core of what 60 Minutes is always remains. I think the independence of 60 Minutes has been critical.”
Sharyn Alfonsi
Six months after Weiss pulled her 60 Minutes story about the Trump administration’s deportation of men to a Salvadoran prison, Alfonsi was let go from the show. “It sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom,” the former correspondent told The New York Times in May 2026, after her contract wasn’t renewed. “I think it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize accurate reporting.”
Tanya Simon
Simon, Owens’ successor and daughter of late 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon, lost her executive-producer job at the newsmagazine in May 2026 after less than a year in the post. In a note to staff (via Deadline), the younger Simon said that “leadership has decided it is time for a new chapter.” And she emphasized that 60 Minutes is “an institution built on independence, grit, and rigorous search for the truth.”
Cecilia Vega
Vega said in a May 2026 statement she’d been fired as a 60 Minutes correspondent, even though her contract wasn’t set to expire until March 2027. “In recent months, my producing teams and I have experienced efforts to insert political bias into our stories,” she said, per Business Insider. “Reporting teams have held back on submitting story pitches about important news topics out of fear of the internal repercussions. Let’s call this what it is: censorship, both imposed and self-driven. It is dangerous for the show and dangerous for democracy.”