MORE CUTBACKS IN STORE AT CBS NEWS

With ratings for The CBS Evening News falling to their lowest level in more than 20 years and ratings for The CBS Early Show stagnating, CBS News is planning another round of drastic cutbacks, according to Tina Brown’s TheDailyBeast.com, which quoted unnamed senior staffers, including one who called the atmosphere at the news division “sepulchral.” According to the website, staffers have not been able to get business cards because the person who had been charged with ordering them had been laid off; the company has blocked calls on company-provided BlackBerry devices for many news producers, who are being encouraged to send text messages; and communications between CBS executives and staff has virtually vanished. “There’s no email,” one producer told the website. “There is no sense at all that you’re at a network.” A CBS spokesperson described the remarks as “water cooler gossip and empty speculation” and insisted that the news division is “thriving.”