As CBS News undergoes major changes this week, with dozens of staffers getting laid off and new leadership taking over, the news outlet’s “Race and Culture” team was also “gutted,” according to The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr.

Barr reported that a CBS News staffer described the cuts as a “blood bath,” adding, “I’ve also heard that the Race and Culture unit was ‘gutted.’”

The “Race and Culture” unit was the subject of criticism last year after “CBS Mornings” anchor Tony Dokoupil was reprimanded by the team for going off script and asking tough questions during an interview with leftist activist Ta-Nehisi Coates.

During the interview in September 2024, Dokoupil pressed Coates on radical aspects of his book “The Message,” which condemns Israel as a racist country and evil occupier. Dokoupil asked Coates why his book left out “that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it.”

“Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it?” Dokoupil asked. Despite the “CBS Mornings” anchor’s tough questions, the interview remained respectful as Coates responded to Dokoupil’s inquiries. CBS News’ “Race and Culture” unit, however, reprimanded Dokoupil for his “tone,” The Daily Wire previously reported.

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The “Race and Culture” unit “works with the executive producers of all platforms across the division to ensure the reporting has the proper context, tone and intention,” according to CBS News. The team is led by long-time news, sports, and entertainment producer Alvin Patrick. Patrick and the “Race and Culture” team have worked on numerous race-centered segments at CBS News.

CBS News is also revamping its Saturday morning show, which has been on the air for 28 years, The New York Post reported. The show’s anchors, Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson, along with executive producer Brian Applegate, have all reportedly been told they are being let go. CBS News staffers were caught in the middle of mass layoffs at their parent company, Paramount Skydance. This week, Paramount Skydance informed around 1,000 employees, including roughly 100 CBS News staffers, that they were being laid off, according to Deadline.

Earlier this month, CBS News also named Bari Weiss as its editor-in-chief. Weiss, a former New York Times opinion writer, was applauded by many on the Right when she resigned from the Times in 2020 and blasted the newspaper’s “illiberal environment” in her resignation letter. The cuts at CBS News were already in the works before Weiss was brought on as editor-in-chief.

CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, merged with David Ellison’s Skydance Media earlier this year. With the merger, Ellison became the CEO of CBS News. Ellison, along with his father, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, has been praised by President Donald Trump.

“They’re friends of mine. They’re big supporters of mine,” Trump said earlier this month.

“They will make the right decisions,” Trump said. “They’re going to revitalize CBS — hopefully, they’ll bring it back to its former glory.”