Bari Weiss Launches Jar Of Mayonnaise Into CBS Evening News Anchor Chair
She's so good at this.
We are calling it now: Tony Dokoupil is going to fall so flat on his face as anchor of the CBS Evening News, he’ll make Chevy Chase’s talk show look successful. He’ll make you long for Rush Limbaugh’s stint as an ESPN commentator. Remember Megyn Kelly’s run at NBC? Megyn Kelly will look like an Oprah-level talent by comparison.
Dokoupil takes over the anchor chair once occupied by Walter Cronkite and Eric Sevareid on Monday. His promotion from the desk of CBS Mornings is the first big, visible move by Bari Weiss since she was installed as editor-in-chief of the network’s news division, and it couldn’t have landed with a bigger thud when it was announced a few weeks ago. A generic mid-wit white guy does not seem like the sort of bold, unconventional choice that is going to get the CBS Evening News out of the third-place hole it has been stuck in for years and years now. It’s a dying format and Weiss thought the way to help it was to dump more cement into the coffin and make it harder for the pallbearers to lift.
Weiss had reportedly chased some bigger names for the job. She allegedly approached Anderson Cooper and was turned down. She reportedly was big on Bret Baier for a while. Then she landed on the most generic white guy imaginable, a dude whose biggest career move previously was that time when he was a total dick to Ta-Nehisi Coates over the latter’s criticism of Israel’s repression of Palestinians.
That famous interview is probably what got Dokoupil the attention of new CBS News idiot-in-chief Bari Weiss, whose outlet The Free Press defended Dokoupil. And didn’t even ask Coates or any Palestinians for their side of the story, which we thought was forbidden under Weiss’s journalistic standards.
CBS is not exactly helping its cause as it tries to launch the Dokoupil era. A few days ago, they sent this loaf of Wonder Bread to Grand Central Station to record a viral video in which he held up a sign with his name on it and asked random passers-by if they could pronounce it.
We haven’t seen anything this sweaty since the last time we were in a gym. In August. During a heat wave:
At what point in this video do you think Dokoupil was silently cursing himself for this stunt? Ten seconds in? Twenty? When he woke up that morning and lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if it was too late to switch careers and open a store that sells men’s haircare products?
For the record, his name is pronounced “Da-koe-pul,” which one person got. Hilariously, quite a few New Yorkers were too busy telling Dokoupil to fuck off to even bother to try. That’s the New York we know and love!
Dokoupil followed up this festival of cringe with a video of himself at the anchor desk explaining his vision for his job:
“People do not trust us like they used to. And it’s not just us. It’s all of legacy media.”
This already sounds like the snarky, condescending memo Weiss sent around the division after she created a huge firestorm by pulling a 60 Minutes segment about America sending migrants to a Salvadoran concentration camp because the producers hadn’t gotten the nuanced views of Stephen Miller or Tom Homan on the subject. It’s clear Dokoupil knows what side of the bread gets the butter.
Dokoupil goes on to name all the important hot-button issues that he claims everyday Americans always want to criticize CBS for covering or not covering. Russiagate! Hillary Clinton’s emails! Hunter Biden’s laptop! One wonders if he really gets this from people he talks to in real life, or if it’s just what randos yell at him about on Twitter.
“The point is, on too many stories, the press has missed the story because we’ve taken into account the perspectives of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites and not enough on you.”
You dumb fucking potato, asking subject matter experts to explain thorny issues is your entire job! If you want to do a story on climate change, you talk to climatologists! If you want to do a story on the high risk of brain injuries in football, you talk to neurologists! If ordinary Americans are all pissed off because the climate scientists and neurologists are telling them things they don’t want to hear, that is more of a “them” problem than a “you” problem. The job is to present information, not flatter the egos of a bunch of used car salesmen in a Dallas suburb who get all their news by following Catturd on Twitter.
Dokoupil went on to swear to viewers that they will come first, not “advertisers” or “corporate interests.” This is a lie. Putting viewers first means being truthful, not telling them what they want to hear.
Or, if you are Dokoupil’s boss Bari Weiss, telling billionaires what they want to hear. Which seems to be her mission in life.
Weiss and Dokoupil’s vision isn’t going to work. Right-wing viewers still won’t believe him and will continue getting all their news from Fox or Newsmax. More centrist and left-leaning viewers won’t bother because they’ll think CBS is trying to be more like Fox or Newsmax. No one is happy and everybody loses.
There’s that high-pitched whine again, as if Edward R. Murrow was spinning in his grave at about a million rpm.
Speaking of Murrow, Weiss chose this past week to get into a pissing match with George Clooney, who has both portrayed the famous anchor on Broadway and directed a movie about his life.
Clooney gave an interview to Variety recently in which he talked about the state of journalism in the United States. And he specifically called out Weiss:
“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney says. “I’m worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”
Now, if we were Bari Weiss, we would just ignore Clooney. Hey, everyone’s a critic! But Weiss apparently still thinks of shitposting as part of her job:
“Bonjour, Mr. Clooney! Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours. This is an open invitation to visit The CBS Broadcast Center, where I’m spending the holidays working to relaunch the Evening News with my colleagues. Tune in January 5,” Weiss said in a statement shared by Paramount Skydance.
George Clooney’s father was a broadcast journalist, and not just any broadcast journalist either. Here’s Nick Clooney bringing down the house at Walter Cronkite’s funeral. Son George probably knew more about the craft by the time he hit high school than Bari Weiss has learned in her 41 years. But we’re sure if he wants to learn more about something Weiss is particularly good at, like cutting news stories that will upset the White House or alienating your entire staff by sucking up to power instead of defending them, he’ll be happy to give her a call.
Support independent media and leave CBS to people who think “Fire Country” is prestige television.
A whiter shade of fail.
I knew Walter Cronkite, Walter was a friend of mine, You sir are no Walter Cronkite!