CBS Moves Ahead With Layoffs in News

By BILL CARTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES
April 2, 2008

News operations at CBS stations in several cities started a series of job cuts this week even as the CBS News network moved ahead with plans to lay off about 1 percent of its nearly 1,200 employees.

Over the last several days, layoffs were ordered at local stations that CBS owns, including ones in New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Dana McClintock, a spokesman for CBS, said the actions at the network and the local stations were not related.

“This is not the result of any corporate mandate,” Mr. McClintock said. The moves are the latest in a wave of cuts at news operations in both television and print organizations.

The cuts at the local stations owned by CBS were related to the financial performance of the station group in the first quarter of 2008, a CBS station executive said. The executive, who requested anonymity because the company was restricting comment on the moves, said that CBS had not issued a corporate order to cut jobs but that the stations “had to deal with their budget numbers.”


Complete article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/business/media/02cbs.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By Phil Rosenthal, Tribune reporter
April 1, 2008

After years of telling viewers about job cuts in the steel industry, among automakers, in the airline business and elsewhere, it's now WBBM-Ch. 2 anchor Diann Burns' industry—the media—shrinking. It's now her job lost.

Burns, reputed to be the city's highest-paid anchor, at $2 million per year, was part of the most dramatic single-day newsroom purge in Chicago TV history.

Beyond its lead anchor, the CBS-owned station on Monday cast off lead sportscaster Mark Malone, longtime anchor-turned-health correspondent Mary Ann Childers, reporter Katie McCall, as well as several behind-the-scenes personnel.

All told, the stationwide cost-cutting sweep claimed about 18 people from what had been a staff of more than 200, effective immediately. No department was exempt. Channel 2 President and General Manager Joe Ahern would only say the reduction was a "single-digit" percentage of the WBBM workforce.

Complete article a:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-tue_childers-burns-out-apr01,0,4474126.story

Its the 'Murican way now.

Exactly right Mika. Before Katie Couric was hired Andy Rooney wanted CBS to allocate that money to hiring top flight reporters. :tv:

Not a big change.