This evening, Pittsburgh will be the backdrop for what’s become perhaps the most controversial network newscast in America, as CBS brings its retooled “Evening News” to KDKA-TV.
The broadcast, airing at 7 p.m., is part of a market-by-market tour for newly installed anchor Tony Dokoupil and editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, a Pittsburgh native with no previous broadcast experience.
To say this new era of “CBS Evening News” got off to a bumpy start would be an understatement.
New anchor Tony Dokoupil, installed by Weiss, has been under the media microscope since before he started. That’s in part because of media fascination with Weiss’ anti-woke, center-right politics and unearned rise to a lofty rank in broadcasting (including her decision to yank a finished “60 Minutes” report critical of Trump administration policies), but also due to Dokoupil’s own words. He claimed his iteration of “Evening News” would be “more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or anyone else of his era.”
Dokoupil also criticized the press for having “missed the story” in the past, “because we’ve taken into account the perspective 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.”
Heaven forbid a newscast should interview an aviation expert when a plane crashes. Better to get the opinion of some random observer who can’t explain how airplanes fly, right?
Some saw the swipe at the educated as ridiculous, given that Dokoupil pursued a master’s in media studies at Columbia University. Plus, in the two weeks he’s been CBS’s evening anchor, Dokoupil gave large chunks of his broadcast’s airtime to “elites,” including interviews with President Trump (with little pushback on multiple lies), Defense Department boss Pete Hegseth, billionaire Jerry Jones, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and the CEO of GM, Mary Barra.
It didn’t help that Dokoupil, dubbed the “MAGA-coded anchor” by The Daily Beast, was perceived as “both sides-ing” the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol on its fifth anniversary as well as the shooting of a mother by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.
Over the last two weeks, Dokoupil has dutifully made the trek to local markets for broadcasts with Weiss reportedly in tow. (I’ve been asking for an interview with Weiss since she was named to the EIC position last year, but either got no response, or, this week, was told “Bari hasn’t been doing interviews but we’re happy to check for you” and then never heard back.)
Earlier this week, efforts to arrange an interview with Dokoupil timed to his Pittsburgh visit seemed like they would come together – as it did when “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas came to town last month — until a publicist stopped responding.
Dokoupil’s “Evening News” will broadcast from a Pittsburgh location that has not yet been announced (networks rarely reveal where they’ll be in advance for security reasons).
With ratings down but no decrease in scrutiny – from technical glitches the first day (The New York Times blamed that screw-up, at least in part, on Weiss’ inexperience in TV) to Dokoupil making himself the focus to jabs by the host of “The Golden Globes” (which also aired on CBS) to reports of a possible sponsored “Evening News” segment (“Whiskey Fridays with Tony Dokoupil”) — this late-stage version of “CBS Evening News” has the feeling of an ill-advised experiment that’s destined to fail, similar to when NBC moved Jay Leno from “The Tonight Show” to 10 p.m.
Channel surfing
Kathleen Kennedy will step down this week as the head of Lucasfilm, with the position being split between Mt. Lebanon native Dave Filoni on the creative side and Lynwen Brennan on the business side. … HBO Max says second season premiere ratings of “The Pitt” soared 200% — drawing 5.4 million viewers in its first three days of release — compared to the first-season premiere in 2025. … Data from people speaking into Comcast’s Xfinity voice remote in Western, Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania found “Penn State Football” was the No. 1 voice command of 2025 and seven of the Top 10 voice commands were football-related. Voice command requests for “The Pitt” ranked No. 12 in the region, the show’s strongest ranking anywhere in the U.S. (next highest was No. 17 in New England).