{"id":385519,"date":"2026-01-01T21:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T21:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385519\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T21:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T21:48:07","slug":"cbs-news-will-be-independent-from-corporate-owner-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385519\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS News Will Be Independent From Corporate Owner, Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs Tony Dokoupil<\/a> gears up to take the reins of CBS Evening News<\/a> on Jan. 5, he has released a New Year\u2019s Day message pledging transparancy and restoring trust in legacy media, and promising independence from politicians and corporate interests.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou come first,\u201d Dokoupil says in his video message. \u201cNot advertisers. Not politicians. Not corporate interests. And, yes, that does include the corporate owners of CBS [Paramount Skydance<\/a>].\u00a0 I report for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDokoupil was confirmed last month as the next CBS Evening News anchor under new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss<\/a>. He succeeds John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, who announced their departures after less than a year anchoring the broadcast. <\/p>\n

\n\tWeiss has come under harsh criticism most recently over\u00a0her decision to pull a planned\u00a0<\/a>60 Minutes<\/a>\u00a0segment extremely close to its air date on the Trump administration\u2019s deportation of migrants to a harsh prison in El Salvador. The correspondent on the story,\u00a0Sharyn Alfonsi<\/a>,\u00a0slammed the decision in a memo<\/a>\u00a0to colleagues, calling it \u201cpolitical\u201d and a case of corporate interference.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount Skydance CEO David Ellison<\/a> also faced scrutiny for settling a Trump lawsuit over a prior 60 Minutes interview and making promises of balanced coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can read Dokoupil\u2019s complete message and see the video below.<\/p>\n

A lot has changed since the first person sat in the Evening News chair. For me, the biggest difference is this: people don\u2019t trust us like they used to.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just us. It\u2019s all legacy media.<\/p>\n

I get it. I\u2019ve been hearing about it from just about everybody, for more than 20 years, as I\u2019ve traveled America on assignment. My mom\u2019s neighbors in West Virginia. My own neighbors in New York City. Thousands of conversations in between.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they want to talk to me about our coverage of NAFTA or the Iraq War. Other times, it\u2019s about Hillary Clinton\u2019s emails or Russiagate. Or more recently, COVID lockdowns, Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop or the president\u2019s fitness for office.<\/p>\n

The point is that on too many stories the press missed the story. Because we\u2019ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.<\/p>\n

I know this because, at certain points, I have been you. I have felt that way too. I have felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn\u2019t reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life. And that the most urgent questions simply weren\u2019t being asked.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my promise to you as long as I sit in this chair: you come first. Not advertisers. Not politicians. Not corporate interests. And, yes, that does include the corporate owners of CBS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I report for you.<\/p>\n

Which means I tell you what I know, when I know it and how I know it. And when I get it wrong, I\u2019ll tell you that too. It also means I\u2019m going to talk to everybody, and hold everyone in public life to the same standard. And because I became a journalist to talk to people. I love talking to people about what works in this country, what doesn\u2019t, and not only what should change, but the good ideas that never should.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think telling the truth is one of them.<\/p>\n

Hold me to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Tony Dokoupil gears up to take the reins of CBS Evening News on Jan. 5, he has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,172868,183772,20552,134,32150,137750,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-385519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bari-weiss","11":"tag-cbs-evening-news","12":"tag-david-ellison","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-paramount-skydance","15":"tag-tony-dokoupil","16":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}