Tony Dokoupil stepping into the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News is more than a personnel move. It is another swing at a problem that has haunted CBS News for decades. The broadcast once set the standard for network journalism. For roughly the past 30 years, it has been stuck chasing NBC Nightly News and World News Tonight.
Dokoupil is now tasked with doing what Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Scott Pelley, Anthony Mason, Jeff Glor, Norah O’Donnell, John Dickerson, and Maurice DuBois have largely been unable to do. He has to move the program out of third place. Saying “he just has to do the thing no one has done in three decades” sounds almost sarcastic. Still, that is the assignment.
History is not on his side. CBS has tried gravitas. It has tried warmth. It has tried straight-down-the-middle seriousness and softer storytelling. Different anchors came with different strengths, yet the outcome barely changed. NBC and ABC kept winning. CBS kept searching.
That reality forces an uncomfortable question. If the traditional playbook has failed for thirty years, is it time to try a different one? More specifically, is there room for CBS Evening News to experiment with a slightly right-of-center approach under Dokoupil and new leadership?
Conservatives have spent years hammering mainstream media outlets as liberal propaganda machines. Whether that critique is fair is almost beside the point. Perception drives behavior. Millions of viewers simply do not trust network news. They believe it does not speak to them or for them.
One counter strategy is obvious. If you cannot win the argument, change the frame. Bari Weiss is a right-leaning figure who has built a sizable following by challenging orthodoxies. That is not a criticism. It is an observation about market demand. Large audiences exist for content that feels skeptical of progressive narratives.
Could CBS become the home for conservatives within the network news space? It would be a sharp pivot. It would also be unprecedented. NBC and ABC are not likely to go there. Fox News and Newsmax have proven conservative viewers are loyal. They show up every night. They stick with personalities they trust.
The reward is clear. Even a modest shift could differentiate CBS from its competitors. Being “not NBC” and “not ABC” has not been enough. Being something meaningfully different might be. That difference does not require partisan cheerleading. It could mean broader debate, tougher questions for Democrats, and a willingness to challenge cultural assumptions.
The risks are equally obvious. CBS could alienate longtime viewers who expect a certain tone. Critics would pounce. Internal resistance would be real. Network news still carries institutional memory, and institutions do not turn easily.
Yet there is a worse outcome. The broadcast could keep chugging along, doing what it has always done, and finishing third by a wide margin. That scenario feels familiar. It also feels safe, which might be the biggest problem of all.
When you have tried dozens of remedies, the fear of failure loses its power. At that point, stagnation becomes the real threat. Third place is not neutral. It signals irrelevance in a shrinking ecosystem.
Tony Dokoupil does not strike me as someone you could describe as “reckless.” He comes across as thoughtful and curious. Those traits matter if CBS wants to experiment without detonating its brand. A right-leaning tilt does not have to be loud. It can — conceivably — be subtle, consistent, and grounded in fairness.
New leadership at CBS News may be the key variable. Anchors alone do not change trajectories. Editorial direction does. If executives decide the old map no longer works, Dokoupil could become the face of a recalibration.
None of this guarantees success. Network news habits are deeply entrenched. Viewers often inherit them. Moving even a small slice of the audience would be an accomplishment.
Still, I would not be surprised if we see something like this attempted. Playing it safe has produced the same result for a generation. High-risk, high-reward strategies exist for a reason. Sometimes, the boldest move is simply admitting the old way is not working anymore.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
This is a good sober take on a change that has attracted unthoughtful commentary based on very polarized thinking. Dokoupil does indeed appear a solid, fairly middle ground choice, whose politics are not in fact clear despite lots of assumptions and assertions about them. Interviewing people when interviewing is your job is not a very rigorous way to assess anything. He and CBS face a tricky but important challenge. Let’s see.
Having watched since the days of Uncle Walter, I’m rooting for the next incarnation. I was also rooting for Mr. Dubois and Mr. Dickerson, especailly since they sparingly used the “Breaking News!” banner unless it really was, and the broadcast seemed anti-hype. I don’t want to see Fox-Lite. Just using neutral language should be the goal of all newscasts and journalists. Sadly, for decades, that’s not been the case. Jeff Glor was able to effortlessly use verbal gymnastics some days to keep it right down the middle, but certainly wasn’t rewarded for it. You have to have the organization behind an effort like that. The number of knives already out for Mr. Dokoupil seems very telling about where Journalism and we are in 2025. To think, it wasn’t that long ago there were some in the CBS News ranks that wanted his scalp for daring to treat a pro-Hamas author fairly (by the author’s own admission).