Media Revolution: Bari Weiss Transforms CBS News Radio After Century-Long Run

CBS News has made the decision to close its historic radio news division, a service that has been broadcasting for almost a century. This move, part of CEO Bari Weiss’s ongoing restructuring efforts, will result in the loss of up to 70 jobs.

The announcement, made on Friday, marks the end of an era for a service that began airing in September 1927. It played a crucial role in shaping the CBS network as we know it today, offering an early platform for the young media mogul William S. Paley.

Legendary news anchor Dan Rather reflected on the closure, lamenting, “It’s another piece of America that is gone.”

The radio service is perhaps best remembered for the iconic broadcasts by Edward R. Murrow, whose vivid reports from the rooftops during the Nazi bombings of London in World War II captivated and informed anxious listeners across the United States.

Famed broadcaster Edward R Murrow’s rooftop reports during the Nazi bombing of London in World War II kept Americans listening anxiously.

Today, CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the country and is known best for its top-of-the-hour news roundups. 

The service will end on May 22, the network said.

‘Radio is woven into the fabric of CBS News, and that’s always going to be part of our history,’ CBS News editor-in-chief Weiss said while delivering the news to the staff. 

Up to 70 people loss their job after CBS News CEO Bari Weiss cut CBS News Radio. The service will end on May 22

‘I want you to know that we did everything we could, including before I joined the company, to try and find a viable solution to sustain the radio operation.’

But with the radical changes in the media industry, she said: ‘We just could not find a way to make that possible.’

Up to 70 people lost their jobs in the closure, the New York Post reported. 

Harvey Nagler, who used to be VP of radio for the company until 2016, told the Post he didn’t agree with the radio shutting down and that now was not the time to do so. 

‘At some point in time, closing it was going to be inevitable, but I don’t believe now was the time to do it,’ he said. ‘Those in a corporate position were not aware of the clout and the reach of CBS News Radio.

‘It’s a profound strategic failure. It’s unfortunate on that basis alone.’

Craig Swagler, the former VP of the radio network, said the shutdown will have a ‘major impact to the accessibility of information across the country.’ 

CBS News Radio was reaching 30 million Americans per week, he told the Post. 

The radio brought up well-known journalists, such as Walter Cronkite (middle) and Edward Murrow (right) 

‘We often look at media as a business and not as a public service,’ he told the outlet. 

CBS News cut some of its radio programming late last year, including its Weekend Roundup and World News Roundup Late Edition, in an attempt to keep the service going.

CBS News cut about six percent of its workforce, or more than 60 people, on Friday. 

It’s not the end of turmoil at the network, as parent company Paramount Global is likely to absorb CNN as part of its announced purchase of Warner Bros Discovery.

‘Given the way things are going, I was saddened, but I wasn’t surprised by it,’ said Rather, who succeeded network legend Walter Cronkite in 1981 and anchored for 25 years.

When Rather covered the civil rights era for CBS News during the 1960s, he said he would file reports as frequently as a dozen times a day. 

When Cronkite told America on television that President John F Kennedy had been assassinated, Rather had relayed the news on the radio.

‘Radio was considered an equal responsibility to television,’ Rather, now 94, said in an interview with AP.

Harvey Nagler, who used to be VP of radio for the company until 2016, told the New York Post he thought it was too soon to shut down the radio network. ‘It’s a profound strategic failure,’ he said 

Craig Swagler, the former VP of the radio network, said the shutdown will have a ‘major impact to the accessibility of information across the country,’ as the network reached 30 million Americans per week 

Along with newspapers, radio was the dominant medium in how Americans got their news from shortly after the dawn of commercial radio in 1920 through the 1940s, with people in their living rooms listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ‘Fireside Chats’ during the Depression. 

CBS News Radio’s broadcast about Germany’s invasion of Austria in 1938, the first time Murrow was heard on the air, was a historic marker for the service.

Broadcasters like Douglas Edwards, Dallas Townsend and Christopher Glenn were familiar voices on CBS News Radio. 

The beginning of the television era in the 1950s began a long slide for radio, often an afterthought today with the world online and on phones. Those seeking audio often turn to podcasts before radio.

‘This is another part of the landscape that has fallen off into the sea,’ said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a trade publication for radio talk shows. ‘It’s a shame. It’s a loss for the country and for the industry.’

CBS News Radio was a major force for generations of Americans. 

‘Its heyday spanned decades,’ Harrison said. ‘It was quality on every level. It sounded good. Its coverage was as objective as possible within the realm of human nature. Its resources were extensive. It had a very high trust factor that was considered the standard of the day.’

The front page of CBS News’ website did not immediately carry news of the demise.

Murrow’s WWII coverage in Europe was a huge success for the radio network 

Weiss, founder of the Free Press website and without broadcast news experience before being hired by CBS parent Paramount’s new management, has quickly become a headline-maker and polarizing figure in journalism. 

She held a 60 Minutes story critical of President Donald Trump’s deportation policy from being broadcast for a month and has critics watching to see if she’s moving the network in a Trump-friendly direction.

Addressing her staff in January, three months into her job as CBS News boss, she invoked Cronkite’s name as a symbol of old thinking and said that if the network continues with its current strategy, ‘we’re toast.’ 

She announced the hiring of 18 new contributors and said CBS News needs to do stories that will ‘surprise and provoke – including inside our own newsroom.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to CBS for further comment.