Longtime CBS anchor claims he was fired for being white, sues network

On Monday, longtime CBS anchor Jeff Vaughn filed a lawsuit against the broadcaster and its parent company, Paramount Global, alleging that he had been forced out of his position for diversity reasons, namely because he is white. The Emmy Award-winning news personality had been with CBS-owned KCAL for eight years before being replaced in 2022 by younger, black anchor Chauncy Glover, who fulfilled the network's racial requirements but had far less experience.

Vaughn argued that CBS selectively targeted him solely because he was a white male, and highlighted a number of ocassions where his decades of expertise were ignored. He claimed that CBS had, from the top down, "implemented an illegal hiring, promotion, or retention policy based on age, race, sexual orientation an sex."

According to the New York Post, under CEO George Cheeks, the broadcaster set diversity goals such as ensuring 40 percent of primetime writers were people of color in the 2021-2022 season. During the effort to achieve that ratio, CBS News and Stations president Wendy McMahon was hired, at which point Vaughn claimed the diversity push "kicked into high gear." It was she who oversaw his replacement.

In his $5 million lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, Vaughn explained that CBS News Los Angeles' general manager told him he would be gone in six months, with no direct reason given. He was only told it was "not about the ratings." Over the following weeks, Vaughn alleged he was excluded from a number of things he would once have been front and centre in. 

During CBS News' 9/11 20th anniversary special, he was "completely left out" despite having been at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. He was also notably absent from the station's billboard promoting its evening shows, despite being the most prominent anchor. His co-anchors, "all of whom were either racial or gender minorities," were included.

When the time came for him to depart, Vaughn was allegedly told to make it seem like it was his decision, but refused. His co-anchor nonetheless tried to paint the situation that way. "CBS decided there were too many white males at CBS, and it acted accordingly," Vaughn lamented. "It needed to solve its 'white male' problem by firing successful white males."