Remember when George Floyd died and suddenly every media company discovered they cared deeply about racial justice?
The Washington Post just fired Emmanuel Felton – their first and last race and ethnicity reporter – and he says it wasn't about money.
Six months ago management told him race coverage was driving subscriptions, then they cut him anyway along with every other person on his race coverage team.
Trump Administration FCC Crackdown Gave Media Executives Perfect Excuse
NBC created entire verticals for Black, Latino, Asian American, and LGBTQ+ coverage after 2020.
CBS launched a Race & Culture Unit with dedicated staff.
The Philadelphia Inquirer built a Communities and Engagement Desk.
All gone now.
Trump took office in January 2025 and signed executive orders ending DEI across federal government, giving FCC Chairman Brendan Carr permission to investigate Disney, NBC, and CBS over their diversity practices.
By March, Carr was forcing Paramount, Verizon, and T-Mobile to abolish DEI policies as a condition for merger approvals.
Media executives could finally dump these programs and blame Trump instead of admitting the 2020 promises were garbage from day one.
Media Layoffs Timeline Exposes What Newsrooms Really Thought About Diversity
In the three months after Floyd's death, DEI job listings nationwide jumped 123 percent according to Indeed.
Companies pledged $340 billion toward fighting racial injustice between 2020 and 2022 per McKinsey data.
NBC promised 50 percent of employees would be people of color.
CBS said its Race & Culture Unit would provide consistency in covering race.
October 2025: NBC gutted its diversity verticals in layoffs hitting 150 people.
Late 2025: CBS dismantled its Race & Culture Unit completely.
This week: Washington Post cut Felton plus the other race reporter and the editor running race coverage.
Felton's team covering America beyond DC is now 90 percent White.
Jeff Bezos Washington Post Newsroom Cuts Hit Race Coverage Hardest
The 2020 surge wasn't about serving communities.
It was about stopping angry consumers and activist employees from torching their reputations.
Research tracked race and diversity journalism roles created between June 2020 and December 2024, finding substantial losses across the industry.
NBC claims general assignment reporters will now cover those communities – the exact approach that failed before 2020 and sparked the complaints.
The Los Angeles Times cut at least three De Los reporters, an editor, and a columnist in early 2024.
Teen Vogue got absorbed into Vogue, eliminating positions mostly held by women of color.
Once protests stopped and Democrats lost power, the work stopped being worth the cost.
DEI Layoffs Prove Media Companies Never Meant Their Diversity Commitments
"This wasn't a financial decision, it was an ideological one," Felton posted after his firing.
The Post didn't eliminate his beat because subscriptions dropped.
Management admitted race coverage was driving engagement six months before they axed the entire operation.
That's not budget pressure.
That's abandoning a priority the moment it became politically inconvenient.
The other race reporter got cut, the race coverage editor got cut, and now the team covering America is almost entirely White again.
CBS News DEI Rollback Shows Pattern Across Media Industry Newsrooms
CBS Race & Culture Unit executive producer Alvin Patrick said in July 2020 they'd provide fresh eyes on stories needing guidance on context and tone.
That unit doesn't exist.
Patrick got reassigned to Head of Content Business Development – a title having nothing to do with his original mission.
Trey Sherman, a Black CBS associate producer, revealed in a TikTok that everyone reassigned after layoffs was White while four people of color got cut.
Sherman connected it directly to Trump's executive orders: companies saw the writing on the wall and acted fast.
CBS is regulated by Carr's FCC and had merger concerns.
They chose protecting business interests over the commitments they made when everyone was watching.
Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ruling Gave Corporate America DEI Elimination Roadmap
This collapse didn't start January 2025.
June 2023: Supreme Court eliminated affirmative action in college admissions.
That ruling gave corporate America legal precedent to attack DEI everywhere.
Attrition rates for DEI roles have exceeded non-DEI roles at more than 600 U.S. companies since late 2020 according to workforce data.
Chief diversity officer hiring dropped 4.51 percent in 2022 after massive growth in 2020-2021.
Companies were retreating before Trump made it mandatory.
The Court decision just provided cover to do what they wanted anyway – save money and avoid controversy by scrapping programs they never believed in.
Trump's executive orders simply made it official policy to do what the business case already demanded.
Sources:
- Joseph Wulfsohn, "Washington Post joins other news outlets in laying off race-based journalists," Fox News, February 6, 2026.
- Hanaa' Tameez, "After LA Times layoffs, questions about diversity and seniority swirl," Nieman Journalism Lab, January 25, 2024.
- "Media Diversity Groups Urge NBC to Recommit After Layoffs," JAWS, October 23, 2025.
- Corbin Reiff, "Media Went All-In on Diversity. Now It's in Full Retreat," The Wrap, October 29, 2025.
- Chairman Brendan Carr, "Chairman Carr Ends FCC's Promotion of DEI," Federal Communications Commission, January 21, 2025.
- "Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives face a sharp decline three years after death of George Floyd," AFRO American Newspapers, January 3, 2024.
- Meg James, "The Trump administration is using the FCC to crush DEI programs," Fortune, July 17, 2025.