Tony Dokoupil steps into the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News at a moment when the nightly broadcasts are searching for relevance as much as ratings.
In a video outlining how he plans to approach the job, Dokoupil offered a diagnosis many viewers will recognize. He argued the press too often listens to advocates, academics, and elites instead of the “average American,” and he pledged to re-center the broadcast on questions that matter to regular people.
It is an appealing sentiment. It is also where the first problem appears.
Dokoupil says he knows the disconnect because he has “been you.” He has felt the frustration of watching the news and not seeing his own life reflected back. That may be true on an emotional level. On a literal one, it strains credibility. Tony Dokoupil is not an average American, and neither is almost anyone working inside the walls of CBS News. That includes high-profile hires, star correspondents, and influential voices who help shape editorial culture (read: Bari Weiss).
Most people in national newsrooms live in major media markets. They earn well above the median income. They move in professional circles dominated by other journalists, executives, academics, and political actors, often with degrees from schools that the “average American” could only dream of attending — let alone afford.
That reality does not make them bad people or bad reporters. It does mean their lived experience diverges sharply from the audience they are now pledging to prioritize.
The term “average American” gets tossed around easily because it sounds virtuous. In practice, it is slippery. Who is that person? A factory worker in Ohio? A single mom in Montana? A small business owner in Georgia? A retiree in Arizona? The answers vary widely, and so do their concerns. If you do not regularly interact with those people, the risk is obvious. You end up guessing what matters to them, or worse, projecting your own assumptions onto them.
That makes designing a newscast for the “average American” a tall task. It is not impossible, but it requires more than good intentions. It demands deep listening, sustained engagement, and humility about what you do not know. Also, it requires a newsroom culture willing to admit that proximity to power can dull perspective. That is a hard admission for any outlet to make, let alone one with the history and prestige of CBS News.
There is another wrinkle worth considering. The cynic in me hears Dokoupil’s pledge and wonders how easily it could be interpreted as something else entirely. “Tell us what you want to hear, and we’ll tell that to you.” That may not be what he means. It is how the promise can sound in an era defined by intensely personalized content.
This is not a restaurant. News is not a menu where viewers pick only what tastes good. The job of a nightly newscast is not to serve as an echochamber or reinforce confirmation biases. Oftentimes, the most important stories are the ones audiences would rather skip. They are complex, unsettling, or inconvenient. Covering them anyway is not elitism. It is the core responsibility.
Balancing that responsibility with accessibility is the real challenge. Explaining issues clearly is different from avoiding them. Asking sharper questions is different from narrowing the scope. Serving viewers does not mean surrendering editorial judgment to focus groups or social media sentiment. When that line blurs, trust erodes rather than grows.
None of this is to suggest Tony Dokoupil lacks sincerity. I have no reason to think he doesn’t believe what he is saying. His frustration with media blind spots mirrors what many Americans feel. Acknowledging that gap is a necessary first step. Closing it is far more complicated than a mission statement or a launch video.
I am rooting for Tony Dokoupil and the CBS Evening News. A ratings resurgence would be good for the broadcast, the industry, and the country. Strong network news remains a civic good, even in a fractured media environment. Competition sharpens standards and expands reach.
Still, when the North Star guiding the program is flawed from the beginning, the journey becomes harder. If the premise rests on an incomplete understanding of who the “average American” is, the execution will suffer. That makes it unlikely this iteration of the CBS Evening News will be the one that returns CBS to dominance in the nightly news race.
Hope is warranted. Skepticism is, too.
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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.
An observation: I see that all the states you named when considering “average Americans” a red states. Am I to infer from this that blue states don’t contain average Americans? Just asking.
I can assure you that I spent exactly zero nanoseconds considering the political leanings of any state listed.
There are a lot of old network newscasts from the 1970s and earlier available on YouTube. Tony and Bari would do well to watch them intently and adopt best practices from that era. A sober “just the facts” approach while doing away with the ridiculously bloated teases that have infected network newscasts would be a breath of fresh air.
All networks could do well to follow your advice!