Joshua Dean, a former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems and one of the first whistleblowers to allege Spirit leadership had ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, died Tuesday morning after a struggle with a sudden, fast-spreading infection.

Catherine Herridge — an award-winning senior correspondent whose First Amendment case is being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among the hundreds of employees at CBS parent Paramount who got pink slips on Tuesday, sources told The Post.

The carnage provoked outrage from the rank-and-file at CBS, with some focusing their ire on Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish, who pulled down $32 million in total compensation last year despite the company’s ever-shrinking financial profile.

“Everybody in the newsroom is pissed that Bob Bakish is making over $30 million and he’s making these cuts,” one insider fumed.

Elsewhere, some suspected the layoffs were more than just cost-cutting. Sources said Herridge had clashed with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews — a sharp-elbowed executive who was investigated in 2021 over favoritism and discriminatory hiring and management practices, as revealed by The Post.

Sources said CBS News’ Washington bureau, where Herridge covered national security and intelligence, was hit particularly hard.