WBZ-TV offers buyouts to photographers, engineers; longtime reporter Beth Germano announces retirement

Boston Globe

24-07-2025

An Aug. 15 deadline has been set for workers to decide if they want to accept the buyout, and their final day would be sometime in September, Fischer said. He said he was not sure if the station will eliminate those positions.
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'Is this just a way to reduce the body count at WBZ or are they going to replace them with cheaper and younger employees?' Fischer said in an interview Thursday.
The union's presence at WBZ is small compared to other local television stations. Fischer said the union represents more than 95 workers at WHDH-TV and and about 90 at WCVB-TV.
The buyouts and high-profile departures come at turbulent time for the WBZ's owner, CBS News, and its parent company, Paramount Global, which recently paid President Donald Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over the editing of a segment on CBS's '60 Minutes.' Paramount has been seeking the Trump administration's approval of a proposed merger with Skydance Media.
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WBZ and Paramount did not return messages seeking comment on the WBZ buyouts, which Fischer believes were in some way spurred by the proposed merger.
'I gotta believe it has something to do with the merger,' he said, referencing the company's settlement with Trump and recent turmoil at CBS. 'And they canceled Colbert.'
Beth Germano of WBZ, CBS News Boston.
CBS News Boston
Aug. 15 will also be the final day at the WBZ for Germano, who said she was not offered a buyout and 'this is totally my own decision.' The timing of her departure alongside the buyouts was 'coincidental,' she said.
'I've been thinking about it on and off for a while,' Germano, 64, said in an interview Thursday. 'Life is a series of chapters and I think it's time for me to start a new chapter.'
Germano started with the station in 1996 and has covered stories across the region as a roving reporter. She previously reported for several other local television stations, including WCVB-TV, New England Cable News, Monitor Cable Channel, WLVI-TV, and WGBH-TV, according to her biography on WBZ's
She said she's been 'blessed with the most wonderful career.'
'I have been honored to just tell stories and to have people trust me with their stories,' Germano said. 'It's been a humbling experience, from the most heroic people that I've met to the most tragic circumstances. It's just been an incredible run, and I'm really honored to have worked in this market and to have met the people that I've met, to work with the people that I've worked with.'
Germano said she always preferred reporting from the scene.
'I never had any desire to get behind the anchor desk,' she said. 'There are people who are very good at that, and we have people at our station who are very good at it, but I always felt like my my talent lies in being able to chase stories, find people, talk to people, tell good stories, and sort of be out in the field.'
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Her broadcast career also included anchoring and reporting for numerous New England radio stations, including in Laconia, N.H., where she got her start in news.
She recalled interviewing Concord, N.H., school teacher Christa McAuliffe when she was a finalist for the Teacher in Space Project. McAuliffe and six astronauts were killed in the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster. Germano, who was reporting for WGIR-AM in Manchester, N.H., at the time, said she still has the cassette tape from their talk.
'I've never ever let it go,' she said. 'That story always stayed with me and it makes you understand the impact of stories when you cover something like that.'
Germano thanked WBZ's viewers for their attention and support over the years, as well as the many people she has interviewed over her career.
'Thank you for talking to me, thank you for trusting me,' she said.
Nick Stoico can be reached at