![\"Dokoupil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GMZUDQQMGJATLI2DWQO6XZBU7U.png\")
Dokoupil drew attention to friendly feedback on his CBS Evening News debut. Instagram\/TonyDokoupil <\/p>\n
Dokoupil on Friday also pushed back against critics of his emotional interview on Tuesday in Miami, where he was raised until he was six years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo help people understand why I have such a reaction: Florida is where I grew up,\u201d the 45-year-old explained in the segment. \u201cMy grandmother\u2019s here, my father, my mother, my aunts and uncles, cousins, and it\u2019s where I would have spent all of my childhood, but we left because my father got in trouble with business. We laugh about it now, but he was a drug dealer and he went to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason it\u2019s so emotional for me is because I feel like I was robbed of the full Miami experience,\u201d he continued, in the same broadcast that he praised<\/a> Secretary of State Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n Dokoupil said he didn\u2019t understand the backlash.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the video some people are talking about as conduct unbecoming,\u201d he wrote on Instagram. \u201cI don\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n Critics of that segment were both liberal and conservative. Ben Meiselas, founder of the left-leaning media company MeidasTouch, posted<\/a> on X: \u201cPull it together man.\u201d Meanwhile, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly weighed in<\/a> on her podcast: \u201cThere\u2019s no crying in evening news.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere might be some crying when a president is shot and assassinated right before your very eyes, like we saw with Walter Cronkite\u2014there was like a wiping of the eyes when he took off the glasses to report that JFK had been shot and killed,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThat\u2019s as far as he went. That\u2019s as far as most evening news anchors would ever have gone, traditionally.\u201d<\/p>\n CBS News has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n Dokoupil hasn\u2019t just taken flak for his Miami segment and his Cronkite comparison. In his weeknight debut on Monday, awkward difficulties over which story he would be covering caused him to admit on-air that there were \u201cbig problems here.\u201d As a result, CBS staffers were reportedly \u201coverwhelmingly depressed<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n After Wednesday\u2019s broadcast of the CBS Evening News, the show\u2019s number 2 producer was let go<\/a>, The Wrap reported, though the move is not believed to be the direct result of difficulties on CBS\u2019 flagship nighttime show. Still, it amounted to more bad publicity at the network, which Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss has been aiming to make more acceptable to conservative audiences. <\/p>\n Dokoupil prefaced his new role at CBS by criticizing the \u201celites\u201d and the \u201clegacy media.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn too many stories, the press has missed the story,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Dokoupil, a former Daily Beast reporter who flew in<\/a> billionaire Cowboys owner Jerry Jones\u2019 helicopter this week, attended a $53,000-per-year prep school in Miami, which he said<\/a> was funded in part by his father\u2019s drug-dealing business. Later, Dokoupil attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Columbia University in Manhattan for a PhD program.<\/p>\n Dokoupil and his wife, Katy Tur of MS NOW, with whom he has two children, live in one of Brooklyn\u2019s most expensive areas. <\/p>\n![\"Dokoupil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/FOHIT35OWRHCXDPOSN5ABOJB2U.jpg\")
Dokoupil defended his emotional explanation about what it meant to be in Miami while leading the CBS Evening News. Instagram\/TonyDokoupil <\/p>\n![\"CBS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/PSC4IB2MSFCAHLE3PAMKEXXYDY.jpg\")
Tony Dokoupil, seen here in Minneapolis, is currently touring the country to try and promote his new show on the ground. Stephen Maturen\/Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"Dokoupil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/XLQW4Z2LFZBHFG7IINF6CT3CFA.jpg\")
Dokoupil broadcast from several cities in his opening week, including Dallas, where he spoke with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. CBS Photo Archive\/CBS via Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"Tur](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/QL54GJLKUVAB5NQHSXMZGVLDPM.jpg\")
Tur has publicly supported her husband after his tough first week helming the CBS Evening News. Gotham\/GC Images <\/p>\n