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Gayle King is expected to be the next major departure from CBS News, as the anchor is set to leave the network's morning show as major changes under Bari Weiss continue. The 70-year-old, who has hosted CBS Mornings under various titles since 2012, will leave the show next year, with her contract set to end in May, Variety reports. King may not be purged from the network entirely, as they may give her a new contract to produce specials for the network, similar to what happened to ex-CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell. 'There have been no discussions with Gayle about her contract that runs through May 2026. She’s a truly valued part of CBS and we look forward to engaging with her about the future,' the network told the magazine in a statement. Massive job cuts are already underway, with the network's formidable new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss telling staff this week that an 'enormously difficult' period lies ahead. The network also killed off a team focused on race and culture as part of sweeping layoffs across the network. The Race and Culture Unit, founded in July 2020, had been tasked with ensuring 'all stories have the proper context, tone and intention' before publishing, according to CBS parent company Paramount. The Daily Mail confirmed the unit was entirely eliminated along with several other positions across CBS News. At CBS News, nearly 100 positions are reportedly being eliminated, with a further 2,000 across Paramount, its parent company. The entire team overseeing CBS Saturday Morning - including anchors Michelle Miller, Dana Jacobson and Executive Producer Brian Applegate - were among those let go. The streaming editions of both CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings are both being killed off. New CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss reportedly acknowledged the cuts on the network's morning editorial call Wednesday, calling it a 'enormously difficult day.' Paramount chairman David Ellison discussed layoffs in a note to staff Wednesday morning. 'In some areas, we are addressing redundancies that have emerged across the organization,' he wrote. 'In others, we are phasing out roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities and the new structure designed to strengthen our focus on growth.' CBS Morning Plus was anchored by Tony Dokoupil and Adriana Diaz, while CBS Evening News Plus was manned by John Dickerson, who resigned from the network after 16 years on Monday. Internally, Dokoupil is a top candidate to replace the Dickerson on CBS Evening News, Status reported. Dickerson and Maurice Dubois took over for longtime anchor Norah O'Donnell in January but were plagued by poor ratings. The Daily Mail contacted CBS News for comment. Weiss – personally appointed by David Ellison, Paramount's billionaire new owner – was indeed brought in as a disruptor. The former New York Times columnist who gave up the day job to strike out and launch her own independent title, The Free Press, with a total focus on responsible and fair journalism, has been in her new post less than month. The impact has been nothing short of seismic. In truth, CBS – founded in 1927 and once home to such journalistic titans as Walter Cronkite – has been suffering for some time. With the advent of Covid and under the staunchly liberal Biden administration, left-wing journalists were given carte blanche to use their platform to advance a myopic political agenda at odds with the majority of ordinary Americans. The result was an exodus of viewers and the near-destruction of a once-venerable institution, now warped into a liberal echo-chamber. There is perhaps no one in America better qualified than Weiss, 41, to right the ship – and not least because she has embraced her own ideological transformation. 'I'm the first to admit that I was a sufferer of what conservatives at the time would have called TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome,' Weiss said earlier this year, revealing that she had wept the first time Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Now, she says, the 'overzealous, out-of-touch, hysterical reaction' to the president on the left is 'extraordinarily authoritarian and totalitarian in its impulses.' That message has stuck fear into CBS's Midtown Manhattan headquarters – where, it seems, many have refused to take the memo. One CBS insider told the Daily Mail that 'everyone is nervous.' Another said staff are 'running scared.' 'I'd say that she's definitely going to make her mark,' a third source said. 'She's in charge, and we know it. We are being flooded in memos. She's watching every aspect of what we do, critiquing where she thinks we are being more biased. There is mandatory training to make sure we're objective, but it's really just telling us how to make sure to tell the conservative side of stuff.' Following Wednesday's news of job cuts, that third source texted the Daily Mail: 'Are you hiring?' Perhaps no greater endorsement of Weiss came this month in the form of whining Guardian column, breathlessly headlined: 'Bari Weiss is a weird and worrisome choice as top editor for CBS News.' David Ellison isn't worried. Following the buyout of Paramount by Ellison's media production company Skydance in an $8 billion deal this August, the son of Larry Ellison – the software entrepreneur and second-richest man in the world – turned his attention to Weiss's Free Press.
