CBS: Paramount rollback of DEI Initiatives to align with Trump (per George Cheeks and co-CEOs)

[janea4old]

Paramount rollback of DEI Initiatives to align with Trump (per George Cheeks and co-CEOs)
https://variety.com/2025/biz/news/paramount-eliminating-dei-trump-1236321790/

Posting this in "Discuss the Soaps" because it's a statement from George Cheeks and his co-CEOs at Paramount.
George Cheeks has been promoting Beyond the Gates...  to the point where a portrait of Cheeks' real-life father is on the wall of a BTG set.

@Toups @Errol 
(move or rename this thread to wherever/however, if needed.)

Feb. 26, 2025
Paramount Global — as it seeks FCC approval for its deal with Skydance Media and amid a pending lawsuit filed by President Trump against CBS News — told employees that it will change some of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs to comply with the Trump administration’s directives.

Quoting a few excerpts from the article

In a memo to employees Wednesday, Paramount co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins, cited the Trump administration’s mandates as requiring “changes in the way the company approaches inclusion moving forward. As a result, some of our policies must change to comply with these new mandates.”

Per the Paramount co-CEOs’ memo, obtained by Variety, the company will no “longer set or use aspirational numerical goals related to the race, ethnicity, sex or gender of hires.” In addition, it has ended its policy of collecting race, ethnicity, sex or gender data for U.S. job applicants on its forms and careers page, except in markets where that’s legally required, per the memo.

The media company also has eliminated the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” qualitative metric in its short-term incentive plan that directly connected 5% of funding for the program to Paramount’s “success in progress on companywide DEI initiatives, including aspirational representation goals,” the execs wrote. Now, Paramount will base 10% of STIP funding on its “Workforce Culture and Development” qualitative metric, “which is focused on building a high-performing and inclusive culture, including through developing leadership and engaging our workforce. ”

The Paramount chiefs sent the memo Wednesday, when the company also reported fourth quarter 2024 earnings results. Paramount said it continues to expect the $8 billion merger with Skydance to close in the first half of 2025 — a deal that is contingent on approval from the FCC.

Prior to the 2024 U.S. election, Trump sued CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview with former VP Kamala Harris that aired Oct. 7, alleging the news program deceptively edited the video. Earlier this month he amended the lawsuit to demand damages of $20 billion.  Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed FCC chairman, has said Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News will likely will be a factor during the FCC’s review of the Skydance-Paramount merger. 

Edited 2 hours ago by janea4old

[janea4old]

I didn't know whether to post this in "Politics", "Discuss the Soaps", or "CBS/Paramount Primetime", because it fits all three categories.

Although this is politically-motivated, this directly affects Paramount, and the fallout could possibly affect CBS programming if the Paramount merger falls through.

The issue is that Paramount is trying to merge with Skydance, but Trump was upset about how the CBS News show "60 Minutes" aired its interview of Kamala Harris, and Trump sued CBS about that.
Trump is trying to hold the merger hostage, unless CBS pays him ten billion dollars.
Trump claimed that CBS unfairly edited the Kamala Harris interview before broadcasting it.
Since that time, CBS released the transcrips and raw UNEDITED video of the Kamala Harris interview publicly, so I don't know why this lawsuit persists.

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/cbs-agrees-to-hand-over-60-minutes-harris-interview-transcripts-to-fcc/

Updated details in this L.A. Times article 
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-02-05/fcc-releases-unedited-cbs-60-minutes-interview-the-subject-of-fcc-complaint
Archived nonpaywall copy of LA Times article:  https://archive.is/x3xlu  

 

Original 60 minutes interview (20 minutes) as it aired in October 2024:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJys7OVH24E

Full Harris unedited Harris/CBS video (57 minutes)
is up on FCC youtube as of Feb. 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEu8hSGDKJA
Transcript of unedited video:
https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/Transcript-Transcribed-Unedited-Interview-Footage-6-of-14.pdf

Version 2 of unedited Harris/CBS video on FCC youtube as of Feb. 7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO_pai9kwZc


"60 Minutes" put the unedited version on its youtube, as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrGyL57833U

CBS news has its own article here from Feb. 5
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-publishes-transcripts-video-requested-by-fcc/
in that article, CBS links to three full-length transcripts of their interviews with Kamala Harris. They are:

• The full transcript of the interview with the vice president at her residence;
• The full transcript of the "walk and talk" with the vice president; and
• The full transcript of the interview with former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Vice President Harris.

 videos corresponding to these interviews:

• Interview with the vice president at her residence
• "Walk and talk" with the vice president
• Interview with Cheney and Harris

In addition, at that link, CBS provides all transcripts provided to the FCC, many of which are duplicates that reflect audio from additional camera angles.

Despite it all being released, and it being clear that nothing significant was edited out,
Trump is still suing CBS and the Paramount/Skydance merger is still being threatened.

Thus the Paramount executives caving to Trump's anti-DEI agenda on Feb. 26.

Edited 2 hours ago by janea4old