Alison Pepper , a longtime talent executive at CBS News who has recently been in her second run at the Paramount Global unit, will leave following the 2024 presidential election, she revealed to staffers in a memo sent Thursday. “I have had the privilege of working each day with all of you, many of whom I consider to be like family, as you navigated some of the most impactful news stories of our time with integrity, ingenuity and grit..
. and I have loved every minute of it,” Pepper said. “But with the seismic shifts facing our organization, I have made the difficult decision to leave CBS News after the election.
” Paramount Global has been seeking to cut $500 million from its budget as it grapples with declines in linear audiences at its cable networks and massive costs to run its Paramount+ streaming service. The company is slated to be acquired by Skydance Media, which is expected to seek additional reductions. Pepper, who joined CBS again in 2021, had been charged with supervising talent recruitment and development across all CBS News platforms.
In recent years, she helped hire Robert Costa and Scott MacFarlane, two political reporters who have gained traction at CBS News, which has a reputation for an insular culture. And yet, CBS News is part of a broader business that also includes the company’s local stations, and there is another executive, Laurie Orlando, who supervises talent for those properties. Orlando had worked for CBS News prior to Pepper’s most rec.