CBS Evening News head departs amid management reorg
16 July 2021
CBS Evening News executive producer Jay Shaylor is exiting amid reorganization of the show's management, sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: It's the second major leadership shakeup at the show in the last few years. The program has struggled for years to compete for ratings with evening news at ABC and NBC.
Details: The departure was announced abruptly Friday morning on a team call that, Shaylor, formerly an executive producer at CNN. He had been in his role with CBS since late 2019.
- Sources tell Axios it's part of a wider management shakeup at CBS Evening News. Last week, the network named Alturo Rhymes and Elizabeth Turner co-senior broadcast producers.
The big picture: CBS Evening News has been through lots of changes in the past few years. Norah O'Donnell took over as anchor of the show in 2019.
- The show relocated from New York to Washington, D.C., that year and changed its management alongside the shakeup.
Be smart: It's not uncommon for leadership changes at major broadcast shows when management changes within the broader network structure. In April, ViacomCBS named Neeraj Khemlani and Wendy McMahon president and co-head of a unit that will oversee both CBS News and CBS television stations.
CBS Evening News did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.