Deadline and the Los Angeles Times are reporting this week that the Paramount Global layoffs have hit CBS News, and that includes two former Houston TV journalists.
The two news operations say CBS Saturday Morning co-host and former CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor has been cut. Between the two of them, they also mentioned the layoffs of senior consumer investigative correspondent Anna Werner and Chicago-based reporter Roxana Saberi.
Werner made a name for herself at KHOU 11 Houston, along with David Raziq (now of WPXI Pittsburgh) and photographer Chris Henao (now KHOU 11's assistant news director), when they uncovered the defect in Firestone tires on Ford Explorers, resulting in the nation's largest tire recall. This story first appeared in Houston at KPRC 2 after the death of abc13 Houston KTRK reporter Stephen Gauvain.
The Channel 11 team also uncovered thousands of errors at the Houston Police Department's crime lab.
"It is yet another sad bit of news as we watch the end of quality investigative reporting on what they now call legacy media," former KTRK investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino told mikemcguff.com about Werner's reported layoff.
Werner left KHOU in 2004 for CBS Bay Area KPIX 5 San Francisco, an owned and operated station. This led her to CBS News, where she first joined as a Dallas-Fort Worth-based correspondent in 2011, eventually moving to the consumer beat in 2019.
Her list of awards is endless, but here we go: 2024 Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia awards, two George Foster Peabody awards, five RTNDA Edward R. Murrow awards, three Investigative Reporters and Editors awards, two Scripps-Howard Jack R. Howard Excellence in Media awards, a Scripps-Howard Roy W. Howard Award for Public Service, a National Headliner Award, a New York Newswomen's Front Page Award, the Associated Press Bill Stout Award for Excellence in Enterprise News, and 35 EMMY awards.
Roxana Saberi's time in Houston television was with the now-defunct News 24 Houston Time Warner Cable news operation. She went on to report from Iran and write a book, which led to her arrest for 100 days in Tehran on the false charge of spying for the CIA. The book became "Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran." She started with CBS News as a freelance correspondent in 2016.
Saberi's list of awards includes the Medill Medal of Courage, the Ilaria Alpi Freedom of the Press Award, and the NCAA Award of Valor.
