Tony Dokoupil Company Wide Email including to the O&Os

/

Tonight, Tony Dokoupil becomes the next to sit in the revolving chair at CBS Evening News.

It should be pointed out that tonight is his official start at CBS Evening News, but with the US military action in Venezuela, Dokoupil was in the chair early.

For 43 years, the CBS Evening News was anchored by either Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather.

Rather signed off 20 years ago, back in 2005. Over the next 20 years, 8 people have held the job of CBS Evening News Anchor. Dokoupil becomes No. 9.

Here is the chronological breakdown of the anchors since Dan Rather:

  1. Bob Schieffer (March 2005 – August 2006)

    Note: Officially interim, but anchored for nearly 18 months and is typically included in the succession lineage.

  2. Katie Couric (September 2006 – May 2011)

  3. Scott Pelley (June 2011 – June 2017)

  4. Anthony Mason (June 2017 – December 2017)

    Note: Served as interim anchor following Pelley’s departure.

  5. Jeff Glor (December 2017 – May 2019)

  6. Norah O'Donnell (July 2019 – January 2025)

  7. 8 John Dickerson & Maurice DuBois (January 2025 – December 2025) Note: Served as co-anchors for the newly reformatted broadcast.

Tony Dokoupil takes over the job tonight, making him the 9th individual to lead the broadcast in the post-Rather era.

CBS has been marred in last place in the ratings, and when you basically change out the main anchor every two years on average, it is not hard to understand why that is.

What makes it worse for Dokoupil is the fact that he is taking over a news division that has lost much of its credibility. CBS News boss Bari Weiss has shown that she wants the news product to go from non-objective to right-leaning.

Her spiking off a 60 Minutes story because it would cast the Trump Administration in a bad light has CBS News staffers feeling dejected.

Now, Dokoupil steps in, and it appears he wants to do whatever Weiss wants. A few days ago, he posted a video that basically said that the networks, including CBS News, did not cover news correctly in the past.

What made the post odd is the fact that Dokoupil has worked at the same CBS News for the past decade. If they were doing it wrong, why didn’t he say something then? Why didn’t he take a stand?

When Dokoupil posted the video, he sent out an email to the entire company, including those at the O&Os, asking them to share his video.

Here is the email, obtained by FTVLive.

Dear Colleagues:

Happy New Year. It’s going to be a big one, and I’m genuinely excited for what’s ahead. A huge thanks to everyone who worked through the holidays to get us on air—and on the road, no less—starting January 5. San Francisco, here we come! We’ll be kicking things off with a 10-city tour in two weeks, including nine of our owned markets.

To help set the stage, I wrote a short essay and recorded a video that we’ve just released. You can watch it here.

It lays out two simple but essential truths about the new show.

First: something everyone in legacy media knows but rarely says out loud—people don’t trust us the way they used to. And second: our answer to that problem is a radical commitment to independence. We work for the viewer. No one else. Our job is to earn their trust. Night after night.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press. It does not guarantee trust in the press. That part is up to us. Together.

I’d be grateful if you could amplify one (or both!) of these videos on your social channels. If the trust video isn’t your style, there’s also a lighter one: people in Grand Central attempting to pronounce my last name. And if reposting isn’t comfortable, a like or comment really helps, too.

You can expect a note like this each morning, from me or another one of us on the Evening News team, with updates from the road.

Thanks, as always, for your support.

TD

“Just feels desperate. Why does our new main evening anchor need us for clout?” said an employee at a CBS O&O to FTVLive.

As CBS News tries to become more like Fox News, we’ll have to wait and see how the Dokoupil era plays out at the one-time Tiffany network. But, if I were a betting man, I would give it just two years.

Stay tuned…