Lisa Ling breaks silence after CBS ouster
Veteran journalist Lisa Ling mentioned she was not shocked to study she was among the many dozens of CBS Information staffers let go this week in a sweeping spherical of cuts ordered by the community’s new administration workforce.
Ling, 52, confirmed her dismissal in a video posted Thursday on Instagram — in the future after CBS’s father or mother firm, Paramount Skydance, slashed roughly 1,000 jobs throughout its divisions within the first wave of cost-cutting since its $8 billion merger closed in August.
“So yesterday, I received a name from CBS that I used to be among the many huge layoffs on the community,” Ling mentioned within the clip.
“Now this didn’t solely shock me, as a result of I wasn’t a full-time worker, however quite a contributor, and we’re straightforward to chop. My coronary heart, although, goes out to all of those that had been working on the community for a lot of, a few years.”
Her exit got here alongside the firings of “CBS Saturday Morning” co-anchors Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson, overseas correspondent Debora Patta and correspondents Janet Shamlian, Nancy Chen and Nikki Battiste — all a part of a newsroom downsizing that affected about 100 CBS Information workers.
Gayle King, the high-earning co-anchor of “CBS Mornings,” is prone to depart subsequent yr, in line with Selection. King instructed TMZ on Friday that she has “no thought” if her present will make adjustments as soon as her contract expires in Might, including that she hasn’t heard from administration as as to if she is on her manner out.
The layoffs hit simply days after newly put in editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and community president Tom Cibrowski started a serious overhaul of CBS Information, which insiders mentioned included axing the Race and Tradition unit, shuttering the Johannesburg bureau and canceling two streaming packages.
In her Instagram message, Ling mirrored on her temporary tenure on the community and praised colleagues who, like her, had seen their jobs eradicated.
“I labored with some great individuals at CBS, and I used to be so pleased with the multi-part collection I used to be in a position to do on caregiving, psychedelic therapeutic and the state of spirituality, amongst so many different segments, issues so related to so many people now,” she mentioned.
“The entire collection had this thread of therapeutic working by way of them, and I needed to let you recognize that I’m creating a platform that may go into even better depth on a complete vary of points associated to intergenerational power and therapeutic.”
Ling joined CBS in 2023 after a nine-year stint at CNN, the place she hosted “This Life with Lisa Ling.”
She beforehand served as a correspondent for ABC’s “Nightline” and co-hosted “The View” from 1999 to 2002.
Her layoff provides to a widening expertise shake-up at CBS, the place high-profile names, together with “CBS Night Information” anchor John Dickerson, have introduced their departures and “The Late Present with Stephen Colbert” is about to finish in 2026.
The Put up reported earlier this week that “CBS Saturday Morning,” which has been on the air for 28 years, will bear a radical revamp below Weiss and Cibrowski, who sources mentioned deemed the published “too costly.”
Executives additionally canceled “CBS Mornings Plus,” a weekday streaming present co-hosted by Adriana Diaz and Tony Dokoupil.
Patta, a veteran overseas correspondent primarily based in South Africa, was added to the layoff checklist on the final minute after a Rome-based colleague, Chris Livesay, efficiently appealed to Weiss for his job.
CBS has declined to touch upon particular person personnel choices.
