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.