“I write to confirm the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that were in place at Paramount and to confirm our commitments moving forward,” Skydance general counsel Stephanie Kyoko McKinnon wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.<\/p>\n
FORMER CBS ANCHOR WARNS PARAMOUNT MERGER MARKS ‘THE END’ OF THE NETWORK AND ‘HONEST’ JOURNALISM<\/a><\/p>\n Paramount’s merger with Skydance comes with the promise of eliminating DEI in the company and installing an ombudsman to monitor bias in the CBS news division.\u00a0 (Photo by Mario Tama\/Getty Images \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n In February, Paramount announced it would abandon DEI hiring goals and remove DEI metrics from compensation packages \u2014 a move that sparked internal backlash<\/a>. Skydance\u2019s letter reinforced that DEI-based hiring and race or gender-based benchmarks would no longer be used, instead emphasizing merit and a wide talent pool.<\/p>\n Another CBS insider, also speaking anonymously, acknowledged that ombudsmen have been used in the past for both internal and external complaints. They warned, however, that the impact of the new ombudsman will depend on the individual chosen and the extent of their editorial authority.<\/p>\n CBS has long embraced DEI goals. “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert admitted in a 2018 New York Times interview<\/a> that he refused to accept writing samples from men in order to diversify his team.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It wasn\u2019t until we said, \u2018Please don\u2019t send us anyone but women\u2019… that I got 87 women. It\u2019s not enough to say you want it, you have to go to the not ordinary step,” Colbert said.<\/p>\n CBS has since announced the end of “The Late Show,”<\/a> with its final episode set for May 2026.<\/p>\n FCC APPROVES PARAMOUNT-SKYDANCE MERGER FOLLOWING TRUMP SETTLEMENT, COLBERT CANCELLATION<\/a><\/p>\n A CBS news insider says the ombudsman’s success depends on what exactly their role will be within the newsroom.\u00a0 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n After George Floyd\u2019s death in 2020, CBS instituted a policy<\/a> that half the contestants in reality programming be BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). CBS President George Cheeks also required 40 percent of writers on primetime shows to be BIPOC during the 2021\u20132022 season. A mentorship program launched that year selected seven writers out of 1,000 applicants \u2014 none of them White men.<\/p>\n “Our Writers Mentoring Program helps provide opportunities and build relationships with network executives and showrunners,” Tiffany Smith-Anoa\u2019i, EVP of Entertainment Diversity and Inclusion at ViacomCBS, told Deadline<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n CBS News has long-faced accusations of liberal and anti-Trump bias. In the 2024 vice presidential debate, moderator Margaret Brennan cut off Vice President J.D. Vance\u2019s mic during a heated exchange on immigration.<\/p>\n Before the 2020 election, “60 Minutes” anchor Lesley Stahl dismissed then-President Trump referencing the scandal surrounding Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop. “This is ’60 Minutes,’ and we can\u2019t put on things we can\u2019t verify,” Stahl said at the time.<\/p>\n CBS News later authenticated the laptop<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n Paramount’s merger with Skydance was approved on Thursday. (Pavlo Gonchar\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE<\/a><\/p>\n Trump later sued Paramount over its 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing the network of omitting a garbled response about the Gaza war in the broadcast version. Paramount settled the lawsuit<\/a> for $16 million earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n CBS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LightShed Ventures Partner Rich Greenfield breaks down claims by President Donald Trump that CBS ’60 Minutes’ deceptively edited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-34569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Paramount](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Paramount-Studio-Lot-GettyImages-1975848603.jpg\")
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