CBS News faces mass layoffs after new MAGA-friendly boss warned network may be 'toast'

Bari Weiss is about to swing the ax at CBS News, according to a new report.

The polarizing top editor plans to lay off dozens of staffers imminently as she reshapes the storied broadcast network, Business Insider reported Thursday. And she has telegraphed the cuts for weeks.

At a late-January all-hands meeting, Weiss told CBS News employees that a "tsunami of technological change" was coming and warned that transformation wouldn't be painless.

"I can't stand up here and tell you that in a moment of incredible transformation that that's not going to mean transformation of our workforce," Weiss told staffers.

Weiss has been blunt about her diagnosis of the network's problems. CBS News has long trailed broadcast rivals ABC and NBC in ratings, and she said clinging to a broadcast-first strategy would be a death sentence.

"Our strategy until now has been to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. I'm here to tell you that if we stick to that strategy, we're toast," Weiss has said.

The cuts follow eleven buyouts at "CBS Evening News" last month as the show underwent an anchor change, with former "CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil taking over. That program has seen ratings plummet to perilously low levels.

Weiss, a former New York Times editor who founded anti-establishment news site The Free Press, was a controversial hire by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison from the start. Her decision to delay a story critical of President Donald Trump's deportation efforts while Paramount pursued a merger with Warner Bros. Discovery drew fierce backlash inside and outside the network.