{"id":108627,"date":"2025-11-03T21:28:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T02:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blackgirlnerds.com\/?p=108627"},"modified":"2025-11-03T21:36:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T02:36:44","slug":"black-media-in-crisis-teen-vogue-cbs-and-nbc-layoffs-signal-alarming-setback-under-trumps-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackgirlnerds.com\/black-media-in-crisis-teen-vogue-cbs-and-nbc-layoffs-signal-alarming-setback-under-trumps-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Media in Crisis: Teen Vogue, CBS, and NBC Layoffs Signal Alarming Setback Under Trump\u2019s America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the swirling chaos of 2025, the state of Black media in the United States feels like it\u2019s being squeezed from all sides. What once seemed like progress \u2014 the flourishing of Black voices in journalism<\/a>, culture, and entertainment is increasingly under threat. From mass layoffs to institutional restructurings, today\u2019s landscape reveals how fragile Black representation in media remains. And against the backdrop of Trump\u2019s return to power, the pressures on Black media and Black journalists have only grown sharper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most searing recent incidents occurred at Teen Vogue<\/em>, a title once praised for amplifying young, socially conscious voices. In early November 2025, Cond\u00e9 Nast announced that Teen Vogue would be \u201cabsorbed\u201d into Vogue.com, and entire swaths of staff were laid off including the politics and news teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of that announcement, former (and now ex-staffer) Aiyana Ishmael took to Bluesky<\/a> to post: \u201cthere are no Black women at Teen Vogue and that is incredibly painful to think about.\u201d<\/em> Her message cut past corporate spin to expose another truth: that structural support for Black women in media is often the first casualty of cost-cutting measures<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was laid off from Teen Vogue this week, alongside multiple other phenomenal team members. \n\nAt our Summit, I was asked how it felt to be 1 of 2 Black women left and what that meant for representation. Now, there are no Black women at Teen Vogue and that is incredibly painful to think about.

[image or embed]<\/a><\/p>— Aiyana Ishmael (@aiyanaish.bsky.social<\/a>) November 3, 2025 at 6:57 PM<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While individual layoffs reveal painful moments, the \u201cBlackout Report\u201d<\/a><\/em> published in October 2025 by Onyx Impact helps situate these patterns within a broader systemic project. The report attempts to catalog how policies under Trump\u2019s return to office have disproportionately harmed Black communities, whether through regression in civil rights, rollbacks of protections, or the hollowing out of accountability systems. The report itself is part of a countercurrent, a pushback against erasure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond magazine media, the network news world has seen its own brutal reckoning. In October 2025, CBS News parent company (Paramount, in merger with Skydance) began sweeping layoffs that severely impacted its Race & Culture Unit, and dismantled verticals dedicated to race, gender, and culture. At the same time, Bari Weiss, newly installed as CBS News\u2019 editor-in-chief<\/a>, has been accused of shifting personnel in ways that systematically dislodge Black leaders in coverage of race stretching the narrative that the network is shedding its Black institutional memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A former CBS producer, Trey Sherman, went public via TikTok, alleging that the layoffs were in fact race-based. He claimed that on his team, \u201cevery producer laid off \u2026 was a person of color,\u201d while white staffers were reassigned instead of terminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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@treymous<\/a>

Is CBS is doing race-based layoffs? #cbsnews<\/a> #layoffs<\/a> <\/p> \u266c original sound – Trey Sherman<\/a> <\/section> <\/blockquote>