NBC News makes big cuts to staff, many of them targeting 'diversity verticals,' insider says

NBC News has implemented layoffs that have rocked 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

On Wednesday, the Peacock network cut roughly 7-8% of its news staff, or about 100–150 employees. The cuts impacted much of the organization, reaching multiple departments. 

Among NBC News staffers to lose their jobs were those who were part of "diversity verticals," a network insider told Fox News Digital.

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Many of the jobs being cut at NBC News are targeting its "diversity verticals," a network insider told Fox News Digital. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

NBC News has had cultural subsections on its news site, including, NBC BLK, NBC Asian America, NBC Latino and NBC Out.

NBC BLK's landing page, for example, says it provides "stories, issues and opinions from the African American perspective" while NBC Out says it "showcases feature stories, original videos and other unique content about, and of interest to, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community." 

The cuts targeting NBC's culture branches were slammed by critics. 

"Of course," liberal Substack writer Wajahat Ali reacted. 

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NBC News is laying off roughly 7-8% of its staffers, or about 100-150 employees. (Joseph A. Wulfsohn/Fox News Digital)

Dr. Allison Wiltz, who describes herself as a "Pro Black Womanist Writer and Scholar" dubbed NBC News "Whites only media." 

"this sucks for those who worked so hard at all these nbc verticals & for all of us who lose out on journalism that represents minorities on a large scale," The A.V. Club staff writer and former NBC News staffer Saloni Gajjar posted. "I loved being a small part of @NBCAsianAmerica in 2020 (a crucial f---ing year btw that we seem to be moving on from!)" 

The NewsGuild of New York, which represents nearly 6,000 media workers across the tri-state region, said 31 members were affected by the NBC cuts.

"Instead of restructuring at the top, corporate profits are being maximized at the expense of our hard-working members who create the very value that drives the success of NBC," NewsGuild of New York President Susan DeCarava told Fox News Digital.

Neither NBC News nor its parent company, Comcast, responded to Fox News Digital's requests for comment. 

The staffing shakeup at NBC News comes as the network moves forward with its corporate divorce from sister cable network MSNBC. 

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The NBC News layoffs come as its corporate divorce from longtime sister cable network MSNBC is underway. (Getty Images)

Comcast announced last year it was spinning off its cable networks into a separate company, now named Versant. Versant will be the new home for MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and the Golf Channel, among other assets, while NBCUniversal maintains NBC News, the NBC News Now streaming network, Telemundo and Bravo. 

The corporate divorce is a major lift for MSNBC, which had relied on NBC News' resources for decades. The liberal cable network has been on a hiring spree to fill the void left by journalists who will remain with NBC News and will vacate from NBC's studio space in New York and Washington, D.C. 

MSNBC will soon be changing its name to "My Source News Opinion World," or MS NOW, to further distance itself from the NBC brand. A date for the name change has not yet been revealed. 

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