Michelle Miller among the many employees impacted by Paramount layoffs

“CBS Saturday Morning” co-host Michelle Miller departs from CBS after 28 year with the network, following mass layoffs.

It’s been a tough week in media, especially for Black journalists. “CBS Saturday Morning” co-host Michelle Miller was among the nearly 100 CBS News staffers let go in a sweeping round of layoffs under parent company Paramount Global, a move that has left many questioning the future of legacy journalism amid an industry-wide reckoning.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Saturday edition of the show will soon undergo a “format refresh” designed to mirror its weekday counterpart, “CBS Mornings.” The layoffs and structural changes were part of Paramount’s broader plan to trim approximately 1,000 jobs as new ownership, Skydance Media, seeks to reduce costs by $2 billion.

For many viewers, though, the loss of Michelle Miller stings. A seasoned journalist with a reputation for telling deeply human stories, Miller has been a fixture at CBS News for more than two decades. Beyond her “Saturday Morning” seat, she’s contributed to “CBS Sunday Morning” and “48 Hours,” and has long been a trusted fill-in for Gayle King on the weekday desk.

Her storytelling often centered the lived experiences of Black America, amplifying conversations around race, justice, and community resilience—work that partially inspired her memoir, “Belonging: A Daughter’s Search for Identity Through Loss and Love.”

“Acknowledgment matters to me. And [it’s] perhaps why I’m the journalist that I am,” Miller previously told theGrio, reflecting on her work. “Acknowledgment matters to me, and I think it matters a lot to a lot of different people. The people in our society [who] often are unacknowledged, whether it be their history, their contributions, their presence, their affinity, their nurturing, all of these things, I think, matter to many people. And I, as a journalist, pick up on those often undiscovered stories, those undiscovered, marginalized communities that have not been acknowledged for whatever reason.” 

Miller is among the many Black journalists, storytellers, and media professionals who have fallen victim to layoffs. And just as they are losing their jobs, audiences in turn lose yet another powerful voice that offers nuance and diversity to the stories that hit mainstream media. And while companies often claim that these decisions are necessary for the business’s success, it’s hard not to ask yourself, “But at what cost?” Especially when the newsroom voices most reflective of America’s true diversity are among those being shown the door.