Fired CBS News producer claims only ‘people of color’ were booted – and that white co-workers were allowed to transfer elsewhere
A black producer laid off from CBS News this week has accused the company of racism by saying that all of his fired fellow colleagues were ‘people of color.’
Trey Sherman made the claim in a viral video posted to his TikTok account Wednesday, after CBS News’ parent company announced sweeping layoffs across the organization.
Sherman had worked for the now-cancelled ‘CBS Evening News+’ since February, as well as the network’s just-eliminated Race and Culture Unit.
‘I just got laid off from my job at CBS, and every producer on my team who got laid off is a person of color,’ he said in the clip, which had racked up more than 2.6million views as of Friday morning.
‘Every person who gets to stay and will be relocated within the company is a white person.’
Sherman then recounted a meeting he said he had with an unnamed executive.
The executive said he did everything in his power to save staffers and provide them with new positions, Sherman said.
‘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,’ he said.
Trey Sherman had worked for the now-cancelled ‘CBS Evening News+’ since February, as well as the network’s just-eliminated Race and Culture Unit .
The cuts at CBS News came shortly after anti-woke former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss was appointed as the network’s editor-in-chief
He said he then asked his white colleagues one-by-one: ‘Are you getting laid off?’ and was told ‘no’ each time.
‘So, I went back up to his office, and I told him, “I think you 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.
He added that the executive said he simply ‘chose to keep the people who I worked with before.’
‘So mind you, not only is it not based on merit, it is, in its result, racist.
‘I don’t care if you decided to keep people who have purple color hair.
‘You deciding 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**t is f***ed,” Sherman said.
The Daily Mail has contacted Sherman and CBS News for comment.
Sherman claimed his firing was ‘racist’ in a TikTok video that has received million of views
David Ellison, the CEO of CBS News parent company Paramount, announced a plan to axe more than 2,000 staff across the organization in a note to staff Wednesday.
‘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.’
At CBS News, nearly 100 positions are reportedly being eliminated.
The decision came shortly after he appointed anti-woke former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss as the network’s editor-in-chief.
CBS Evening News cohost John Dickerson resigned earlier this week, and it was revealed on Thursday that longtime CBS Mornings host Gayle King will be removed from the show when her contract expires next year.
