Changing of the guard at the top of CBS News. After two years, president and co-head of news Neeraj Khemlani announced that he was stepping down and has signed on for a role of lesser responsibility inside the company. In the email sent on Sunday to the internal staff, he didn’t mention anyone as his replacement. His co-head of news, Wendy McMahon, will remain in her role.
Over the past two years, Khemlani has dealt with high-profile anchors and the HR Department complaining about cost-cutting. He was in charge of some of the most important CBS programs, such as “CBS Evening News,” “60 Minutes,” “CBS Mornings,” and “Face the Nation”. Now he will be staying on at CBS, but in a different capacity. “I look forward to putting my reporter’s notebook back in my pocket and setting off on a new adventure”, he wrote in his farewell obtained by The New York Post.
This move comes after two announcements received last week. The 24/7 streaming news service CBSN will soon be available on CBS All Access and CBS has signed a new partnership with BBC News to share content and resources around the world.
If CBS has successfully eluded the spotlight until this moment, the same cannot be said of its rival television networks, where there has been plenty of drama. Last spring, Fox News settled a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for nearly $800 million over the network’s promotion of misinformation during the 2020 presidential election. Shortly after that, Tucker Carlson exited “Fox & Friends”, which was renamed “Fox News Tonight” and now has rotating hosts who host the program. Then, on June 7, chief executive and chairman of CNN Chris Licht’s saga came to an end when he was fired after 13 months on the job.
