Tony Dokoupil took his place at the anchor desk of the \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d on Monday as the troubled news division undergoes reinvention under its new editor in chief, Bari Weiss.<\/p>\n
Dokoupil was supposed to start his run with a trip to 10 cities across the U.S., to connect with viewers outside of the media centers of New York and Washington. CBS News leased a private 14-seat jet for the tour, but the plan was delayed once the U.S. military action in Venezuela became a major story early Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
Instead, Dokoupil took the chair Saturday night and broadcast live from San Francisco before returning to New York for his official premiere on Monday. The tour is still on and will commence Tuesday from Miami. <\/p>\n
Dokoupil\u2019s new role will be the first major test for Weiss, who came to the division with no previous experience in television or with running a massive journalism operation. Choosing on-air talent who help drive ratings for the network is considered the most critical task for a TV news executive.<\/p>\n
Dokoupil, 45, follows the duo of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois<\/a>, who co-anchored \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d for a year. The program tried to bring more in-depth pieces to the typically fast-paced network evening news format. But it lost viewers and put CBS further behind \u201cABC World News Tonight With David Muir\u201d and \u201cNBC Nightly News With Tom Llamas.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n Dokoupil\u2019s first official broadcast returned to a style that resembled previous iterations of \u201cCBS Evening News,\u201d with a tight shot of the anchor sitting at a desk in a newsroom.<\/p>\n Over the past year, Dickerson and DuBois were seated at a long desk and often interacted with correspondents shown on a large screen. The program no longer includes an in-studio meteorologist to present national weather.<\/p>\n Dokoupil\u2019s arrival marks the fifth anchor change at the \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d since 2017. NBC has made one change since then, while Muir has been in his role at ABC since 2014.<\/a> <\/p>\n CBS News promoted Dokoupil\u2019s launch with a whimsical social media video that showed the journalist presenting a piece of paper with his name written on it to commuters at Grand Central Terminal in New York. Asked to pronounce \u201cDokoupil,\u201d few of the commuters came close even though he had been co-host of \u201cCBS Mornings\u201d for several years.<\/p>\n The promo seemed like an odd choice given how the network evening news anchor has traditionally been a position requiring gravitas and comforting familiarity for its habit-driven audience.<\/p>\n Dokoupil also issued a video message last Thursday suggesting organizations such as CBS News are no longer reliable sources of information for much of the public.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair,\u201d he said. \u201cBut for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it\u2019s not just us. It\u2019s all of legacy media.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe point is, on too many stories the press has missed the story,\u201d he added. \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 The anchor went further on his Instagram account, where he cited Walter Cronkite, who sat at the desk during the division\u2019s glory years of the 1960s and \u201870s. \u201cI can promise we\u2019ll be more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or anyone else of his era,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dokoupil\u2019s claim prompted a response from Michael Socolow, a journalism professor at the University of Maine and the son of Sandy Socolow, who produced Cronkite\u2019s broadcast.<\/p>\n Socolow noted how Cronkite believed the public should be skeptical of what it saw on TV news and take in other sources and points of view.<\/p>\n In an interview with The Times, Socolow said Cronkite was never comfortable with his designation as \u201cthe most trusted man in America.\u201d CBS News touted that point, which was based on a single public opinion poll.<\/p>\n \u201cCronkite thought it wouldn\u2019t be in the public interest to be too trustful of any specific media source,\u201d Socolow said. \u201cAnd he made that clear in public speeches and TV interviews for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n Socolow posted a clip of a 1972 interview with Cronkite as an example.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think they ought to believe me, or they ought to believe Brinkley, or they ought to believe anybody who\u2019s on the air, or they ought to get all their news from one television station,\u201d Cronkite said.<\/p>\n The latest change at \u201cCBS Evening News\u201d also follows one of the most tumultuous periods in the long history of CBS News. The organization was shaken by the Dec. 20 decision by Weiss to pull a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d piece<\/a> on the harsh El Salvador mega-prison the U.S. government is using to hold undocumented migrants.<\/p>\n Weiss believed the story needed more reporting, including an on-camera response from Trump White House officials. The White House, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department had all declined comment to \u201c60 Minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n But the decision to yank the announced segment the day before it was scheduled to air led \u201c60 Minutes\u201d correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi to claim in an email to colleagues that the decision was political. Alfonsi had worked on the story for months and had it vetted by the division\u2019s standards and practices department.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment silence is a statement, not a VETO,\u201d Alfonsi wrote in the email. \u201cIf the administration\u2019s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a \u2018kill switch\u2019\u2019 for any reporting they find inconvenient.\u201d<\/p>\n Alfonsi\u2019s reporting did show up on Canada\u2019s Global TV service, which had been given a feed of the program before the change was made, an embarrassing operational error<\/a> by CBS News. The segment was shared widely on social media.<\/p>\n Every move by Weiss has received heightened scrutiny since she was given editorial control over CBS News in October. She joined the network after parent company Paramount acquired the Free Press, a digital news and opinion platform she co-founded. The site made its name by calling out perceived liberal bias by legacy media organizations and so-called woke policies.<\/p>\n Media industry critics have used the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d controversy to suggest Weiss was installed to placate President Trump as Paramount pursues the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>, which would require government regulatory approval. A person close to Weiss who was not authorized to comment publicly said Paramount had no say on the Alfonsi piece.<\/p>\n