CBS News Producer Quits Over ‘Ideological’ Change. Recent Stories Show Little Has Changed

Curtis Houck
February 12th, 2026 7:09 PM

Text to Speech

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Late Wednesday, New York Times media reporter Benjamin Mullin shared that CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey had not only taken one of the offered buyouts to employees of the flagship newscast who weren’t onboard with editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’s vision, but that she penned a tirade about dismay over the network’s “heartbreaking” “ideological” changes and what she claimed was a culture in which staff wouldn’t be able to properly engage in the journalism of St. Walter Cronkite.

Simply put, this had all the trappings of a liberal theatre kid who thinks their life must be like The West Wing. But not only was it nauseatingly dramatic, Hastey completely ignored what’s been happening on her own network with stories just this week that were no different than past newscasts helmed by John Dickerson, Norah O’Donnell, or Scott Pelley.

Hastey’s 442-word rant said she was writing to her colleagues “with sadness” that she was leaving after four years that stared “with gratitude and optimism” and was now, well, not.

“I want to leave you with these thoughts only as a reminder of things I know you already know,” she declared with the kind of arrogance that current anchor Tony Dokoupil and Weiss have railed against.

She insisted she’s focused on “underrepresented perspectives,” “challeng[ing] conventional wisdom,” and “more responsive” reporting.

Lacking the courage to trash Dokoupil and/or Weiss by name, she then described the future of CBS News as no longer committed to telling the truth but instead considering stories based on “ideological expectations”:

But, there has been a sweeping new vision prioritizing a break from traditional broadcast norms to embrace what has been described as “heterodox” journalism. The truth is that commitment to those people and the stories they have to tell is increasingly becoming impossible. Stories may instead be evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.

Pausing for a second, if those things are true and happening at CBS, why then did this piece air on Thursday’s CBS Mornings:

Or, how about this one a few segments later about climate change ruining the Winter Olympics:

How about one more from the same show? In its “USA to Z” series for America’s 250th birthday, the show spotlighted Miami’s Freedom Tower as a beacon for Cuban refugees, but never used the c-word (communism) or even an l-word (left, liberal) to describe the Castro regime:

Okay, that’s the morning show and she worked at the CBS Evening News. But how about this story from Tuesday’s Evening News:

If that wasn’t enough, how about this attempt to find new victims of ICE by partnering with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):

How could we forget this doozy from correspondent Nicole Sganga back on January 12:

But who can forget this insane CBSNews.com item scoffing at illegal immigrants arrested with “non-violent” offenses that ran on both newscasts and featured a boost from Weiss herself on social media.

You, dear readers, get the point. Back to the theatre kid’s attempt at playing Spartacus.

She explained she wasn’t attacking those “who remain at CBS News” and insisted they’re still “produc[ing] thoughtful and important work, even under difficult circumstances” and that, in turn, was “what makes this moment so heartbreaking: the very excellence we seek to sustain is hindered by fear and uncertainty.”

She even quoted Cronkite, who allegedly once defended the news business as being biased liberals, saying “[h]e understood that labels are inevitable, but standards are what matter” and “journalism” is whatever we determine it to be as per their own standards, “not what critics call it.”

The concluding thoughts were the kind of haughtiness that remind us too many liberal national journalists think they’re the First Amendment in the same way Emperor Palpatine told the Jedi he was the Senate:

I’ve always taken comfort in the belief that if we hold fast to those first ideals, trust follows. But those ideals cannot stand on their own. They require vigilance. They require courage.

I know that you all will continue to show that courage — offering news, guidance and respect to the millions who come to us every night. Don’t let anyone diminish the incredible impact you can and do have.

None of this is to say CBS News won’t improve or that Dokoupil and Weiss were selling the public a bill of goods they didn’t intend to deliver. Indeed there have been some signs of progress (see here, here, here, and here). Rather, it has, at a minimum, laid bare the deep, ingrained levels of liberal, geographically-slanted bias that remains.

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