200 Laid Off at CBS News; Striking Writers, Networks Continue Talks

NEW YORK — Dismissal notices went out to 200 CBS News employees Friday as federally mediated talks resumed here in hopes of getting 525 striking news writers and others at CBS and ABC back to work.

The layoffs, coupled with a $30-million budget cut at CBS News, are part of an extensive belt-tightening under way throughout CBS.

Hardest hit was “CBS Morning News,” the victim of heavy cuts in a previous retrenchment at CBS News. This time, sources said, nearly 20 staff members were dismissed from the perennially third-ranked morning program. Another eight were shifted to a new producers’ “pool” set up as part of the restructuring by CBS News President Howard Stringer.

CBS officials declined to identify those being laid off. But network sources said they included 15 to 20 on-air correspondents, including Washington reporter Ike Pappas.

At least four people at CBS’ Los Angeles bureau also got pink-slipped. Fifty-two people had been assigned to the Los Angeles operation, including the satellite bureaus it oversees in San Francisco, Denver and Seattle.

3 Bureaus to Close

The Seattle bureau was one of three that CBS had said Wednesday was being closed, along with bureaus in Bangkok and Warsaw.

CBS did confirm that its “In the News” feature--a weekly series of 2 1/2-minute news reports aimed at children and interspersed during the network’s Saturday morning cartoon shows--was being dropped after 15 1/2 years.

Stringer’s reorganization plan, which cut the news division’s budget by about 10% and trimmed its worldwide staff to just over 1,000, was the third cutback at CBS News since 1985 and brought the number of dismissals to 414.

“For those of you whose efforts and dedication to CBS News have been so ill-rewarded today, I can only offer my deepest regrets,” he wrote in a memo Friday. “For the rest of us, our public trust must still override our private grief.”

It was not clear if any CBS staffers on strike were among those being fired.

“We haven’t heard anything about it, so there’s no way of knowing yet,” said Martin Waldman, spokesman for the Writers Guild of America.

The guild represents the news writers, editors, promotion writers and others who on Monday struck CBS, ABC and seven stations owned by those networks, including CBS’ KCBS-TV Channel 2 and KNX-AM Radio (1070) in Los Angeles, after talks on a new contract broke down.

2nd Day of Bargaining

On Friday, negotiators from the union and the networks, brought together here by federal mediator Timothy Germany, held their second day of bargaining since the strike began.

The two sides negotiated almost nonstop for 13 1/2 hours Thursday before calling it quits at 11:30 p.m. “There was some movement on both sides,” Waldman said of that meeting. “But resolution of major issues were not reached.” Talks resumed Friday and were still going at 6 p.m.

Meanwhile, picketing continued at ABC and CBS facilities in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and here.

In Los Angeles, the striking news writers Friday held a noon rally outside Television City. The event drew an estimated 200 strike sympathizers who listened to several speakers, including screenwriters Renee Taylor, Ray Gideon and Bruce Evans. Though they also belong to the Writers Guild of America, screenwriters are not on strike.

Another noon rally was also scheduled today outside the studios of KCBS-TV and KNX-AM on Sunset Boulevard. Guild spokeswoman Cheryl Rhoden said picketing will continue during daylight hours at both locations through the weekend.

Won’t Cross Picket Lines

Earlier this week, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and former Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.) declined to cross picket lines to appear on programs of the struck networks. But the networks said they do not expect the strike to affect their Sunday talk shows.

A spokeswoman for ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley” said the show’s three intended guests had declined to cross picket lines in front of the ABC News studios in Washington. But she said Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole (R-Kan.) and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will be interviewed via “remote” broadcast arrangements from locations where they would not need to cross picket lines.

Karen Sughrue, executive producer of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said Sunday’s guest--David Abshire, President Reagan’s special counsel--had been advised of the guild picket lines at CBS News studios in Washington and reported that he would be there anyway.

Times staff writer Dennis McDougal in Los Angeles contributed to this story.