It’s the 6:30 p.m. ET broadcasting block on Wednesday, and Tony Dokoupil, the shiny new host of “CBS Evening News,” is explaining away the killing of three journalists in Gaza even as a ceasefire deal apparently remains in place.
That does not seem to matter much to Dokoupil, who before landing this plush gig at Bari Weiss’s CBS News was best known for hassling the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates for his “extremist” belief that apartheid is morally wrong.
Dokoupil opens the news read already at a distance: “Turning to one of the deadliest days in Gaza since October’s ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, an Israeli airstrike today killed three journalists.”
He continues by accepting, without skepticism, Israel’s framing of what should be a clear violation of the terms of the ceasefire: “Israel said it was targeting a group operating a drone affiliated with Hamas,” Dokoupil says. “One of those journalists, Abed Shaat, has worked for CBS as a photographer. His colleagues described the 30-year-old as a brave person doing dangerous work. He was married just two weeks ago.”
It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it sleight of hand that tells you exactly where the priorities of the news regime at CBS lie. First, there’s the tone, which exudes calmness about the fact that a co-worker has been killed doing his job. Dokoupil states that Shaat died in an Israeli airstrike targeting “a group operating a drone affiliated with Hamas,” the implication being that Shaat was either working with Hamas or was a little too cozy with Hamas, a means of justifying his killing. Finally, Dokoupil uses the distancing language of “[Shaat’s] colleagues” – making clear that the host of “CBS Evening News” is certainly not among them.
It was just the latest low for a host who has struggled to find his footing and his audience. Dokoupil’s viewership numbers have been in the tank, with the number of eyeballs down 23 percent in his first five days on air, compared to a year ago with anchor Norah O’Donnell. Viewership was not much improved in Dokoupil’s second week; “CBS Evening News” remained a distant third behind ABC and NBC’s evening news shows. (Perhaps that’s why Dylan Byers, every media boss’s favorite stenographer, landed the unattributed scoop Thursday night that “Evening News” drew 6.4 million viewers on Monday, said to be its largest audience since 2021.) Dokoupil’s first official broadcast was marred by gaffes, and his January 6 show featured a fawning package on Secretary of State Marco Rubio that featured the utterly surreal lines: “Marco Rubio, we salute you. You’re the ultimate Florida Man.” (The White House rapid response team approvingly shared the clip.)
Higher up at the network, there have been multiple rounds of reporting that Weiss, CBS’s new editor-in-chief, isn’t so much a manager or a journalist as the person tasked with courting the capricious approval of President Donald Trump. Weiss, who answers directly to David Ellison, infamously caused a Streisand effect by pulling a “60 Minutes” story about Venezuelan men deported to a notoriously violent prison in El Salvador hours before it was set to air because there was no on-camera comment from the Trump administration. The story finally aired Sunday with no substantive changes — and without the all-important on-air administration voice.
Coming to us from a Ford assembly line in Dearborn, Michigan, on January 13, Dokoupil landed a marquee interview with Trump himself. With the sound of loud machinery in the background, the president didn’t bother to conceal his disdain. In response to a question about Iran, Trump seemed to imply that Dokoupil, a convert to Judaism, has dual loyalty to Israel.
“I don’t know where you come from and what your thought process is, but you’ll perhaps be very happy,” Trump said.
His subtext doesn’t appear lost on the host, who responded, “What do you mean by that?”
Later on, Trump disciplined Dokoupil again, this time in reference to his decision to greenlight David Ellison’s acquisition of CBS-owner Paramount Global. “You wouldn’t have a job right now,” Trump tells the anchor. “If she [Kamala Harris] got in, you probably wouldn’t have a job right now. Your boss, who’s an amazing guy, might be bust, OK? … You wouldn’t have this job, certainly whatever the hell they’re paying you.” At the interview’s close, Dokoupil attempted to save face, saying, “For the record, I do think I’d have this job even if the other guys won.” Without missing a beat, Trump responded, “But at a lesser salary.”
For all this taking it on the chin, Dokoupil and Weiss’s righteous reward was the White House threatening to sue over the interview.
“CBS Evening News” with Tony Dokoupil demonstrated its obsequiousness by publishing “five simple principles” ahead of the new host’s debut. The “principles” are condescension for the Americans they claim to love all the way down. “We love America. And make no apologies for saying so,” reads one. Another proclaims: “We work for you.” (You quite literally do not.)
Principle number three is “We respect you.” Its description reads in part: “We believe that our fellow Americans are smart and discerning. … We trust you to make up your own minds, and to make the decisions that are best for you, your families and your communities.”
This babytalk for idiots is a common thread running through the new era of “Evening News.” Dokoupil comes to us live from Real America — a stunt dubbed the “Live From America” tour — including the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati and a diner in the West Loop of Chicago. In Chicago, the broadcast includes a segment where the host takes the L train from the Loop to West Garfield Park to bring attention to the “death gap,” or life expectancy disparities, between neighborhoods.
As the train rumbles along, Tony looks out the window, affecting introspection, while his voiceover rolls: “Even on a snowy day, we could see a change from the train window,” he says, like a space alien seeing a city for the first time. At the end of the January 16 half-hour at a steel plant in Pittsburgh, which featured a “LESSON IN BIPARTISANSHIP” (in other words, a segment with Democratic Sen. John Fetterman and Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, both of Pennsylvania), Dokoupil all but waves a Made in USA American flag to show his love for the common man.
In concluding his second week on January 16, Dokoupil signs off by giving himself credit for a job well done. “What a privilege it’s been to hear from so many of you, to hear what matters in your lives. … We put some of your big questions in front of this country’s biggest leaders.” To underline the point that he really is one of us, he then appears to go perhaps a bit off-script. “I’m gonna talk to these steel workers,” he says. “You wanna trade jobs? This one’s not as easy as it looks! I’ve been learning that.” In an unintentionally comedic moment, multiple steelworkers respond “Yes.”
Three weeks into his new job, it’s unclear who this incarnation of “CBS Evening News” is even for. Despite Weiss’s best efforts, the answer is not the White House, as Dokoupil can’t even succeed in flattering Trump. One possible answer is the old and the infirm: During every single commercial break I watched, multiple pharmaceutical ads ran, sometimes back to back, saying more about the state of America than Dokoupil ever could.
All this capping about love of country, and the host’s own posturing, speaks to an ambition of reconnecting with Americans who have lost faith in the media. Considering what we know about the Ellisons and their support for Trump, it’s not hard to imagine that the show’s new spin is an effort to reach MAGA America. But that’s a miscalculation at best and a dangerous slide to the right at worst, one that risks alienating the liberal viewership that still believes in institutions like CBS.
MAGA adherents already have Fox News serving as de facto state TV news, and the disenfranchised among them have drifted so far outside any kind of consensus reality that they have embraced more fringe, far-right-wing outlets like One America News Network or the MyPillow guy. They are no longer “gettable” as an audience.
Weiss and Dokoupil would be much better served if they tried seriously to retain the viewers they had, rather than chase imagined, untold millions of disillusioned Trump voters looking to come in from the cold. It speaks to a real confusion about who “CBS Evening News” is really for, if the true goal, as stated, is to grow its audience. But if the actual goal is to remake an authority in news into a platform for nakedly broadcasting Weiss and Ellison’s political views, it’s already a roaring success.
