Tony Dokoupil Is Still Eating Shit, Even If No One’s Watching
Chances are you haven’t seen or thought of Tony Dokoupil in a while, and you wouldn’t be alone. Dokoupil’s CBS Evening News is lagging well behind ABC and NBC’s nightly news programs, recently dropping under 4 million viewers per night. But TV ratings aren’t necessary for what you can see with your own eyes: The CBS anchor is a dud with poor direction, and everyone knows it—including the people who work with him.
On Thursday, Vanity Fair published a piece full of brutal quotes about Dokoupil’s time as Bari Weiss’s pet. There’s some clarity provided on why he had such a rough start in the job in January. Remember when Dokoupil ate shit on his first regular broadcast and screwed up a line read? That’s reportedly because Weiss, the CBS News editor-in-chief, fiddled with the script to make Donald Trump look better, and typed her changes in the wrong place. “The text was added to the teleprompter twice, leaving her new star anchor flummoxed, stumbling over his words for several excruciating seconds,” Aidan McLaughlin wrote.
The Vanity Fair article is based off 20 or so sources, some of them anonymous CBS staffers. As anyone could’ve figured out, Dokoupil’s weirdly hostile interview with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2024 was what got Weiss’s attention. (Dokoupil reportedly went off script with his questions in that interview.) When she was put in charge of CBS News, Dokoupil became her anchor, but only because no one good was willing to do it.
“She called everyone on planet Earth,” says a prominent agent. “And that was her problem. In doing so, she demonstrated she didn’t really know how the process worked.”
“He very much was not Bari’s first choice,” the correspondent says. “He must have been her seventh or eighth choice, because nobody would take the fucking job. I mean, she wanted Bret Baier. She wanted Anderson Cooper. She wanted a name, and she does not see Tony Dokoupil as a name. A useful idiot for sure, but not a name.”
Weiss has found other ways to make the show worse. McLaughlin reported that Jerry Seinfeld’s daughter Sascha Seinfeld, who works at Weiss’s Free Press, was brought in to be a writer for CBS Evening News. For some reason it didn’t work out, because she has since returned to her previous job.
Just from the outside, you get the sense that the main strength of people like Weiss and Dokoupil is ingratiation, and that they have no backup strategy or skills. The CBS anchor is an ardent support of Israel, yet he can bore even Benjamin Netanyahu:
When Dokoupil conducted a gentle interview with Netanyahu last October, producers were surprised by his deferential attitude to the Israeli prime minister when the cameras weren’t live. At one point, according to a former staffer who watched the footage, Dokoupil started “bragging” to Netanyahu about his relationship with Weiss. Netanyahu didn’t seem to care. “Bibi didn’t give a shit about Bari Weiss,” a CBS source says. “He was just like, ‘Okay, whatever.’”
How long can Dokoupil keep his job? Judging by the report, it sounds like CBS News could be stuck with him; nobody else is particularly leaping at the opportunity to kiss so many asses. Those behind the scenes have less tolerance for it: According to the report, 10 Evening News staffers have left their jobs this year, and there’s unhappiness among those who remain. That said, it’s a little heartening to learn that Bari Weiss is as talentless as she seems.
