Tony Dokoupil starts ‘CBS Evening News’ run with Pete Hegseth

This probably wasn’t the kickoff to a run on “CBS Evening News” that Tony Dokoupil – or his bosses – had in mind.

The host, a veteran of CBS News’ morning program, would have launched his term Monday, but a stunning attack on Venezuela by U.S. forces, followed by the extraction of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, made his appearance on the channel’s evening news all the more necessary, especially as top staffers from other networks, including NBC’s Tom Llamas and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, revealed their intention to appear on their networks’ evening schedules for weekend duty.

So here Dokoupil was on Saturday evening updating viewers on the latest developments, assisted by correspondents like Charlie D’Agata and Scott MacFarlane – and a three-segment interview with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Viewers might have expected to see Dokoupil emerge from behind the desk, taking the temperatures of more average Americans. After all, earlier this week he appeared in a promo telling potential viewers that “on too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the perspective of the average American. Or we’ve given too much weight to the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough to you.”

Saturday’s “CBS Evening News” had no direct input from the average American, and Hegseth, who has a level of power that most people in the US do not, could certainly be considered “elite.”

Dokoupil faces many challenges. “CBS Evening News” has been in third place for years, well behind ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “NBC Nightly News,” and its position has been further eroded in recent months as CBS tested a two-anchor format with Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson, which ultimately resulted in fewer viewers. While NBC has only relied on four anchors for “Nightly News” in about four decades, CBS continues to change them, adding Scott Pelley, then Jeff Glor and Norah O’Donnell in just the span of a few years. Such tinkering makes the task of connecting with loyal viewers more difficult.

He has been chosen to try to foster new connections with the public by Bari Weiss, the recently installed editor-in-chief of CBS News. She arrived at the Paramount Skydance-backed outlet after it reportedly spent $150 million on its opinion site, The Free Press. Weiss has no experience running a mainstream TV news organization, and in recent weeks that has started to show. There has been controversy over a fully vetted “60 Minutes” report she allowed to be preserved, and people familiar with the newsroom say staffers have grown frustrated as a continued focus on her management decisions has diverted attention from the serious journalism produced by CBS News reporters. CBS News was early with news of the strikes in Venezeula during the weekday hours of Saturday morning, as well as important details about some of the planning for the operations.

Weiss hasn’t exactly paved the way for her anchor yet. Dokoupil’s early January start was revealed just three weeks ago, leaving CBS little time to lay the groundwork for his arrival. TV networks typically devote extended attention to the impending arrival of a new evening anchor, often sending that journalist to executives and staffers at affiliates across the country, where local anchors are asked to push viewers toward the national broadcast that follows. Three weeks leaves little time to use outdoor advertising or other promotional tactics to drum up interest, and a digital video distributed this week showing Dokoupil trying to catch the attention of passersby in Grand Central Terminal did not suggest he was well known.

With the arrival of the new host, CBS has updated the look of the venerable program, which has ties to the revered Walter Cronkite. Graphics make the screen less cluttered, reducing distractions for the viewer from what the presenter has to say. Whether Dokoupil would have more details to offer after a full day of cable news and broadcast network special reports on the subject remained to be seen. Ultimately, CBS News ceded most of its time to Hegseth.

Saturday’s broadcast should not be viewed as “as is,” as Cronkite used to say. Dokoupil would begin his participation in the program by visiting several American towns and cities. He was on KPIX, the CBS station in San Francisco, on Saturday evening. He is scheduled to return to New York for his Monday broadcast, delaying plans that would have him traveling by the middle of next week.

Dokoupil concluded Saturday evening with the sentence: “That’s another day in America and the world.” But it was probably not just another day for him, and certainly the start of a longer journey.