Exits

Scott MacFarlane, a high-profile hire for CBS News five years ago, announced Monday he is leaving the network.

MacFarlane told colleagues in an email that the departure is his decision.

“I will always value the opportunity I had to work alongside the talented and committed professionals here,” MacFarlane said. “I’m proud to have had the words ‘CBS correspondent’ next to my name and always will be.”

MacFarlane added that he looks forward to “some independence and finding new spaces to share my work in line with my personal goals.”

MacFarlane is the first significant name to depart CBS News since parent company Paramount won its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery on Feb. 27. CBS News is likely to be combined with Warner Bros. Discovery‘s CNN if the deal gets regulatory approval.

Journalists at CBS News have also been concerned over the moves by Bari Weiss, the contrarian opinion writer and founder of the digital news site the Free Press who was brought in as editor in chief of the division. Weiss was recruited by Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison with a mandate to move CBS News to the political center.

Weiss is expected to make significant changes to “60 Minutes” and other CBS News programs in the coming months.

Executives at other TV news organizations say privately that they are seeing a heavy influx of resumes from CBS News journalists due to the upheaval at the company.

MacFarlane covered Congress and the Justice Department. CBS viewers saw him featured during extended network coverage of the State of the Union addresses and election nights.

MacFarlane was in Butler, Pa., during the assassination attempt of President Trump in July 2024. He reported the first accounts of the shooting scene and emergency responses moments after the shots were fired.

Before arriving at CBS News, MacFarlane served for eight years as an investigative reporter for WRC-TV, the NBC station in Washington, D.C.

Charlotte Bankes hoped to “put on a better show” as her Olympic hoodoo continued with a quarter-final exit from the snowboard cross – in another missed medal chance for Team GB.

Bankes, appearing at her fourth Games, is a former world champion and has 26 World Cup golds to her name, but an Olympic medal is the one that continues to evade her grasp.

Although slower than anticipated in her seeding run, the 30-year-old had qualified fastest from her heat but looked off the pace from the start of her quarter-final, crossing the finish line last.

It was the same story four years ago in Beijing when Bankes exited at the same stage, a crash to blame on that occasion.

Asked by BBC Sport how she was feeling, Bankes replied: “Lost.

“I feel like I’ve done exactly the same as four years ago, which is very frustrating.

“We’ve worked incredibly hard to improve from that and I feel it hasn’t made any difference today.

“I’ve been struggling with the track all week, but we thought we’d found solutions.

“I really wanted this one.”

Bankes’ preparations for these Games had not been ideal.

In April last year she broke her collarbone, an injury she needed further surgery – including a bone graft from her hip – on in the summer after it was found not to be healing correctly.

But she came into the Games back to full fitness and had won a gold medal at a World Cup in China just last month.

“It’s a tough one to swallow. I was hoping to put on a better show, but it didn’t work out today,” she added.

“It can be a cruel sport. The team did all the work behind me and I didn’t pull it off.”

Australia’s Josie Baff won gold, with Czech Eva Adamczykova taking silver and Italian home favourite and former champion Michela Moioli the bronze.

Bankes has just 48 hours to brush off her disappointment before she returns to the start gate alongside team-mate Huw Nightingale in the mixed team event.

Bankes and Nightingale were crowned world champions in 2023.

The Livigno Snow Park has not been a happy hunting ground so far for Team GB at the Milan-Cortina Games, and the wait goes on for a first Olympic gold or silver medal on snow.

Two fourth-place finishes for freestyle skier Kirsty Muir and snowboarder Mia Brookes came earlier in the week, but both will return to action in the coming days, as will Zoe Atkin, the current halfpipe world champion.