NBC News will be terminating 150 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) employees who are responsible for "Black, Latino, Asian and LGBTQ+" coverage in the newsroom.
The Wrap, in an exclusive, reported that NBC News was firing its teams dedicated to issues affecting those communities.
NBC News executive vice president of editorial, Catherine Kim, announced the cuts to staff on the morning of Oct. 15. Kim claimed that the layoffs made things a “difficult day for a lot of us,” the Wrap reported.
The Wednesday newsroom massacre comes as NBC News splits from its sister news network, MSNBC.
The total reductions will cut about 7% of NBC News’ 2,000 newsroom staffers, which is 2% of the wider NBCUniversal News Group family of local affiliates and stations, including Telemundo.
The staff cuts are nominally part of a reorganization that splits MSNBC from NBC News under a new entity called Versant, which has been described as an efficiency measure to streamline operations across NBCUniversal’s news division, which comes at the expense of its NBC BLK, NBC Latino, NBC Asian America, and NBC Out teams.
The elimination of the DEI staffers will affect NBC News’ entire news operations, as vertical operations like NBC BLK, NBC Asian America, NBC Latino, and NBC OUT will have fewer personnel to cover stories in those communities, say critics.
However, several affected staffers will be reassigned to other editorial positions, reported The Advocate.
This is NBC News’ second round of layoffs for 2025. The network fired about 40 staffers in January, including some working in diversity teams.
The drastically downsized operations will continue to publish minority and LGBT stories, with NBC News expecting to retain at least five staffers to cover those issues, according to The Advocate.
NBC News, once one of the major mouthpieces of DEI ideology, has shifted from boasting about its “race and equity” teams to quietly dissolving them.
This shift represents one of the largest blows to DEI in big media and is a potential forecast of major changes on the horizon.
Media outlets throughout the nation have also slashed DEI departments, as the industry faces financial losses and public backlash against the "woke" agenda. Gannett, Disney, and Condé Nast have made similar cuts to their DEI desks in recent months.
Earlier this year, FEC Chairman Brendan Carr sent a letter to NBC's parent, Comcast, informing its executives that it would investigate the company for having “executives specifically dedicated to promoting DEI across the TV and programming side of the business.”
President Donald Trump has called on companies and government agencies to end the DEI movement in favor of merit-based hiring and career advancement.
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NBC Out, which was launched in 2016, was the first major news group on TV to bring attention to homosexual and transgender issues, and it promoted events like Pride Month.
NBC BLK, NBC Latino, and NBC Asian America played a similar role for minorities.
In contrast to the dismantling of the DEI desks at NBC Universal, MSNBC, which is being rebranded to MS NOW, has launched a new show featuring Jonathan Capehart and Eugene Daniels, who are openly homosexual black men.
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