There Was an Actual Dumpster Fire Happening by CBS

Screenshot via X (@jeremymbarr)

According to an X post from The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr, an actual dumpster fire erupted near New York City’s CBS Broadcast Center on Friday.

Barr posted the image at around 3 PM EST, showing a large green dumpster near the W 57th St. production hub engulfed in flames, with one onlooker watching.

In the comments, former CBS executive producer Alturo Rhymes offered some clarification, writing, “This is across the street at an apartment complex lot.”

For some, the fire may serve as an unintentional metaphor for the network as a whole under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. According to weekly reporting from ADWEEK, CBS Evening News finished in third place — behind ABC and NBC — for total viewers during the week of March 2.

The show, hosted by Tony Dokoupil, drew 4.117 million total viewers last week and 507,000 viewers in the key demographic. Compared with the prior week, the broadcast slipped 1% in total viewers but edged up 1% in the demo, making it the only evening newscast to post a week-to-week decline in any measured category.

Additionally, since last year, total viewership fell 6% while demo viewership dropped 19%. Notably, neither NBC nor ABC experienced declines in the same timeframe.

Not to mention, per reporting from Vanity Fair‘s (and formerly Mediaite’s) Aidan McLaughlin, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani dropped out of talks to appear for an interview on the network due to concerns over a recent X post from Weiss.

In the post, the editor-in-chief promoted CBS commentary from Iranian dissident and journalist Masih Alinejad, who slammed the mayor’s late Feb. statement in which he argued that engaging in military activity with Iran “mark[s] a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression.”

Mamdani is “more than welcome to come to one of my safe houses,” said Alinejad in the clip, which Weiss reposted with a fire emoji.

Last but certainly not least, this week, CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane announced his departure after becoming “disillusioned” and “appalled” with the publication under Weiss — the latest in a string of exits from the network.

Just last month, both 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper and CBS Evening News producer Alicia Hastey left as well.

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