CBS News justice correspondent who covered January 6 flees network for ‘some independence’

One of CBS News’s most visible Washington reporters, whose beat helped define television coverage of the legal aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol, is leaving the network.

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Scott MacFarlane, CBS News’s justice correspondent, told colleagues he is departing after about five years and plans to pursue work with “some independence.”

MacFarlane confirmed the decision in a note to colleagues that he posted publicly on X. “To my incredible colleagues at CBS: I want to personally let you know that my work will soon no longer appear on CBS News,” he wrote. “This is my decision, and I appreciate the bosses at CBS for understanding it.”

He added that he was grateful for the newsroom and the role he held there.

“I’m proud to have had the words ‘CBS correspondent’ next to my name — always will be,” MacFarlane wrote. “For the next phase of my career, I look forward to some independence and finding new spaces to share my work in line with my personal goals.”

MacFarlane did not announce where he will go next.

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The correspondent joined CBS News in 2021 and quickly became one of the network’s most recognizable voices covering the Justice Department and federal courts. His reporting tracked hundreds of prosecutions tied to the Capitol attack, one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history, helping viewers understand the legal consequences of the assault on Congress.

But his exit comes during a period of upheaval inside CBS News, where leadership changes, layoffs, and editorial battles have reshaped one of the country’s most storied broadcast newsrooms.

The changes accelerated after anti-trans queer right-wing journalist and commentator Bari Weiss was appointed editor-in-chief following corporate restructuring at the parent company, Paramount. Weiss, founder of the media outlet The Free Press, was brought in as part of a broader effort by executives to rethink the network’s editorial approach and rebuild trust among audiences skeptical of legacy media.

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MacFarlane is among several prominent journalists and newsroom leaders who have departed since the transition.

Longtime CBS political journalist John Dickerson announced in October that he would leave the network after 16 years, stepping down as co-anchor of CBS Evening News. His co-anchor, Maurice DuBois, also exited the broadcast shortly afterward, bringing more than two decades at CBS to an end.

More recently, Shawna Thomas, the executive producer of CBS Mornings, said she would step down after five years at the helm, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The internal tensions have also deepened in the newsroom.

Veteran CBS producer Mary Walsh, who spent more than four decades at the network, announced in February that she was leaving after writing a memo to colleagues saying staff had been told to “aim our reporting at a particular part of the political spectrum,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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Walsh did not identify the political viewpoint she believed the network was targeting, and CBS leadership disputed her characterization, saying the newsroom continues to value editorial independence.

Still, her departure, after 46 years at the network, became one of the clearest public signs of internal anxiety about CBS News’s evolving editorial direction.

The shift has already produced other controversies. As previously reported by The Advocate, newsroom tensions have surfaced over how CBS journalists should cover transgender issues and what language reporters should use when describing transgender people. The newsroom has also faced scrutiny over editorial decisions, including the reported cancellation of a 60 Minutes segment examining conditions inside El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison.