When new Paramount CEO David Ellison hired Bari Weiss to become CBS News’ editor-in-chief back in October, the plan — or so it seemed — was for the network to shake things up.
Weiss, who founded the independent news and opinion site The Free Press and wrote for The New York Times’ opinion section before that, had never worked in a television newsroom.
Instead of it being a detriment, her lack of experience was seen as a possible advantage. She was an outsider. She could be a bit of a rebel. She could come in with fresh news ideas to raise the metabolism of what she saw as a stuck-in-its-ways network news division.
That’s why Wednesday’s official announcement at CBS News felt a tad uninspiring. Tony Dokoupil was named as anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” The co-host of “CBS Mornings” since 2019, Dokoupil will start his new gig on Jan. 5. The announcement was made on Wednesday’s “CBS Mornings.”
So, yeah, my initial reaction is … meh.
That’s not to disparage Dokoupil, who is a perfectly fine journalist and will do a capable job as anchor. He has experience and journalistic chops and certainly has paid his dues to earn the new job he has been handed.
It’s just not the kind of hire most of us expected when Weiss was named editor-in-chief. Instead of thinking outside the box, instead of trying something new and different, Weiss hired someone who looks like a traditional network news anchor. Same look, same resume, same background. Pretty much the same everything.
In a statement, Weiss said, “We live in a time in which many people have lost trust in the media. Tony Dokoupil is the person to win it back. That's because he believes in old-school journalistic values: asking the hard questions, following the facts wherever they lead and holding power to account. Americans hungry for fairness will see that on display night after night.”
Again, this is not to suggest that Dokoupil is undeserving. There’s something to be said for “old-school journalistic values” and “asking hard questions” and “following the facts” and “holding the power to account.” One would expect Dokoupil to do all of these things.
The thing is, this hire would have felt fitting in 1975. And 1985. And 1995.
But in 2025? From a supposed maverick like Weiss? Now it just feels like the status quo.
Is this the kind of hire that’s going to move the needle?
When Norah O’Donnell stepped down as the “CBS Evening News” anchor early this year, the network tried something different. Aside from altering the format and the way it presented the news, the newscast also experimented with co-anchors instead of the traditional one. John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois handled the bulk of the anchoring duties, with “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan chipping in with stories from Washington, D.C.
The revamped newscast really didn’t resonate with viewers and, to be honest, it often felt clunky. As a result, the “CBS Evening News” remained stuck in third place in the ratings behind ABC’s “World News Tonight” and the “NBC Nightly News.”
The experiment didn’t work. But at least CBS News tried something. When you’re cemented in third place, what do you have to lose?
Once Ellison brought in Weiss, the writing was on the wall for the newscast. Changes were coming, and the co-anchors knew it. In late October, Dickerson announced he was leaving the network after 16 years. Last week, DuBois announced he was doing the same.
When it became clear that the “CBS Evening News” would be getting a new anchor, the question became: Who? Reports were that Weiss’ short wish list included Fox News’ Bret Baier, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Dokoupil and even the possible return of O’Donnell.
Personally, I would have liked to have seen the network stick with DuBois in a solo role, while totally revamping how the news was presented. Or, perhaps, going back to O’Donnell under a new format.
Instead, Weiss and CBS are going with Dokoupil. Now we wait to see if CBS News also goes back to the traditional, do-it-as-it-always-has-been-done format.
In his Puck newsletter, Dylan Byers suggested that the hiring of Dokoupil should not be a total surprise. He wrote, “On some level, Tony is Bari’s ideal anchor: a strong-jawed white man who harkens back to an earlier era of broadcast TV and thus subverts the industry’s recent preoccupation with identity politics.”
Tom Cibrowski, president of CBS News, said in a statement, “Tony is what everyone wants in an evening-news anchor — authentic, compassionate, unafraid. He connects instantly, whether he's talking with world leaders or with families navigating difficult news in their own backyards.”
In its news release, CBS News said, “In his first month, Dokoupil will get out from behind the anchor desk and meet with viewers in cities and towns across America. His cross-country tour builds on two decades of journalism spanning the globe and on the instinct that has defined his coverage: to go where the story is.”
Sending Dokoupil out on the road sounds like a good start, and at least it’s something a little different. It might be a good way for the network to introduce him to those who are not familiar with him.
Up until now, aside from his mostly steady work on “CBS Mornings,” Dokoupil might be best known for an interview on the CBS morning show.
As The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum explained:
During an interview in September 2024, Mr. Dokoupil challenged the author Ta-Nehisi Coates about a new book he had written on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Dokoupil told Mr. Coates that some of the material in the book “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” adding, “what is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place?”
Mr. Coates replied: “There’s nothing that offends me about a Jewish state; I am offended by the idea of states built on ethnocracy, no matter where they are.”
Some CBS journalists objected to how Mr. Dokoupil had handled the interview, and the news division’s leadership rebuked the anchor on a newsroom-wide conference call, saying the interview had fallen short of editorial standards. That prompted Shari Redstone, the owner of Paramount at the time, to defend Mr. Dokoupil and reprimand her own executives, saying “they made a mistake” in questioning the anchor.
Grynbaum points out that Weiss’ Free Press was “all over the story.” The Free Press wrote an editorial criticizing the network for a perceived anti-Israel bias, and added, “It is journalists like Tony Dokoupil who are an endangered species in legacy news organizations.”
As far as Dokoupil’s background, The Associated Press’ David Bauder writes, “Dokoupil, 44, who is married to MS NOW’s Katy Tur, has been with CBS News since 2016. He worked at MSNBC prior to that, and wrote for Newsweek and the Daily Beast. He hosts a weekly streaming show, ‘The Uplift,’ about positive news stories and wrote the memoir, ‘The Last Pirate: A Father, His Son and the Golden Age of Marijuana,’ about his father’s life as a drug smuggler.”
So, again, all accomplished stuff. To be clear, I’m not questioning Dokoupil’s credentials. He’s a top-notch journalist. And, again, I expect he will do a professional and good job.
It just feels as if Weiss, in her first major move, missed an opportunity to try something really new, different and groundbreaking. Isn’t that why she was brought in in the first place?
However, Byers wrote, “Sources say Bari’s forthcoming vision for the network will put an emphasis on more town hall events and debates, which she hopes will be must-see TV. This certainly sounds more interesting than anything cooked up by the previous regime, but it’s also the playbook that Jeff Zucker tested in his final years at CNN — and one, yes, unlikely to reverse the inexorable decline of the medium itself.”
