CBS has long been a network in decline. With dismal ratings, the network has been mired in third place for years, and many view it as openly biased and partisan in its coverage, including pushing false stories with a political agenda. Bari Weiss was brought in to save the network and move it back to a neutral center. She has encountered continued attacks from staff who are outraged by the efforts, including her recent selection of Tony Dokoupil as the next evening anchor. Dokoupil is being attacked as too white, male, straight, and pro-Israel.
The one identity these staffers seem less interested in is that of a top news network. Weiss is trying to save their very jobs by reversing this trend. However, these anonymous staffers would prefer to lose their jobs than their bias.
For full disclosure, I worked (twice) for CBS News as a legal analyst. I have great affection for the network and want to see it return to its prior glory. However, years of staff and culture shifts have taken their toll. Great reporters like Catherine Herridge were let go despite their reputations for following stories regardless of the political impact or influence.
The objections to Dokoupil are particularly revealing. Past CBS hosts and anchors have destroyed the network’s standing with many viewers, particularly those in the middle or right of the political spectrum. The decline was summed up when 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl literally laughed on air in the face of President Donald Trump, after he said that Biden was implicated in the influence-peddling scandal involving his son, Hunter. It was not the smug delivery but Stahl categorically denying that Biden was facing a scandal and showing absolutely little interest in the documented millions of dollars that went to the Biden family.
CBS increasingly seemed to be reporting to a shrinking audience composed of themselves, other establishment media, and the far left. The result was a network that was underperforming and little-watched.
The owners and shareholders welcomed a new direction, but many in the staff want a return to the same disastrous path. It is reminiscent of the response of staff at the Washington Post to Jeff Bezos bringing in new editors to reverse the decline of the newspaper.
Post owner Jeff Bezos brought in Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis, who promptly delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
The response called for Lewis and other editors to be canned. Again, these reporters would rather give up their very jobs than their bias.
The attacks on Dokoupil’s race, gender, and sexual orientation captured the unhinged and hypocritical character of these critics. They are triggered by any mention of race or gender by others, but regularly move to cancel others using the same identity criteria. It does not matter that Dokoupil has a long journalistic career or that a major change is badly needed if the network is to reverse these trending numbers. His actual talents appear immaterial to the consideration of his race, gender, and sexual orientation.
For those of us who once worked at the network, we are rooting for Weiss and Dokoupil in turning this ship around. CBS has been one of the truly great news organizations. It can be again.
It’s like opening a Tupperware container from the fridge and discovering the contents are rotted, wormy and reeking.
The only thing is to dump the contents and sterilize the container.
Convenient for CBS staff to stink up the place and show how toxic they really are. Clean and sterilize.
I realize that I haven’t watched any network news in decades and don’t plan to change. The rotten smell began leaking long ago from all of the networks.
I am looking for a turn-around, much like Musk did with Twitter; right into the toilet because, it turns out, the bulk of right wingers don’t have a lot of spare cash, except for prepper meals, overpriced gold coins, and boner pills.
Dear Prof Turley,
Neither Barry Weiss nor Leslie Stall are going to save CBS. .. they’re less reliable than Fox news, if such a thing is possible.
The spirit of Walter Cronkite left that organization long ago.
*I do still watch the Sunday morning news shows.. . to better know my enemies.
Leslie Stahl is not going to save CBS. How astute!
OT: Looks like the DOJ’s incompetence is getting worse. Abrego Garcia’s case could be thrown out and a judge is ordering the DOJ to release him immediately. So many cases the DOJ is losing due to incompetence or outright lying to judges. Wow.
Funny thing is if this was the Biden administration Professor Turley would be all over this like white on rice.
Apparently, Turley has a decidedly partisan view to cover here .. . but ‘white on rice’ is inappropriate.
Dgnowden, how so? Are you implying it has a racist overtone?
You mean judges who are Obama/Biden appointees who have never read the Constitution and keep getting slapped down by the SCOTUS and appeals courts who are actually familiar with the separation of powers concept and the prerogatives of the Executive Branch.
No, I mean the DOJ’s incompetence has gotten worse. They have been screwing up so many cases over the stupidest things. It fits the theme of Trump “picking only the best” when it’s really the worst possible picks.
X, why don’t you tell us (since you know so much about everything) just HOW MANY CASES, i.e., the total number of cases, that DOJ prosecutes every year
vs. how many were “screwed up…over the stupidest things.” Let’s see some numbers, pal.
Oh look! Another leftist who doesn’t have the brain power to blow his own nose. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but these judges are being overruled by SCOTUS in most cases and stayed in others.
SCOTUS is bought and paid for. Check Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow and their relations to Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett and do on.
Jasmine Crockett/Snoop Doggy Dog 2028!
I hope and pray Trump cures Cancer, so that we can see Dems and progressives say that is bad because they love Cancer.
If Trump DID cure cancer, RFKjr would come out in 6 months and say the miracle drug actually causes autism, turn the mob AGAINST the cure and Trump would end up denouncing it.*
*see Operation Warp Speed and the first COVID-19 vaccine
It is odd that Turley leads the column with criticisms of the new CBS anchor based on identity, but then never mentions the actual attacks.
Turley never lets actual facts get in the way of his argument. His readers would never forgive him.
CBS is complexion, gender and sexual orientation, socio-economic, political, religion, creed, and place of national origin preference biased to 10 standard deviations left of the mean.
I hope Ms. Weiss remains relentless in shoving actual journalists down the throats of those-neo Marxist, pro Hamas propagandists who have infected that newsroom for decades. Let them all quit get jobs with Al Jazeera or with the Hamas Health Department
What Weiss knows about “actual journalism” she could stick in her eye and never feel. But I’m happy you’re happy.
Au contraire!
AlanK,
Bari Weiss was brought in to try to clean up CBS news. If successful, she will bring back things like journalistic integrity, credibility and trustworthiness like she did with The Free Press.
“The Free Press”? Never heard of it.
The Democrats in America are supporting the progressive dictator of Venezuela and they hate it when he loses drug money. Over the top? There’s a freedom fighter in Venezuela and you haven’t heard a word about her from the savers of the world at CBS. https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/disguised-and-in-danger-how-a-nobel-peace-prize-winner-escaped-venezuela-8146dc9d?st=Eik2Ex. Instead you get to hear about the poor fishermen with their boats filled with drugs being murdered. I guess one mans drug runner is just another man’s freedom fighter. CBS says, let’s just give the dictators fishermen a chance. You can see the tears running down their cheeks. Oh the poor fishermen! Oh the poor fisherman! Oh poor poor Maduro!!!
TiT,
Well, the Democrats are against anything Trump does. I recall how NPR had an article about how exercise was a gateway to white supremacy. We have a obesity epidemic that costs billions in healthcare, and NPR wants you to believe if you exercise you just might become a white supremacist.
Nothing says ‘obesity epidemic’ like ol’ YamTits himself giving out McDonalds to White House guests. But do go on….
Better than having a guy in a dress for United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, or some freaky bald guy who steals luggage.
What NPR notes is that when a Black man goes running in a white neighborhood, people call the cops or jump in a pickup truck with guns and go after them to arrest or shoot them. And then the white cops say, looks like the guy deserved it.
Did you make this up?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuela-opposition-leader-maria-corina-machados-nobel-prize-speech/
Two seconds of Google searching disproves your point.
TDS requires opposition to everything TRUMP!
Doesn’t matter to the striken if it results in destruction.
Similar to rabies in that way.
If this pathetic excuse of a political leader really wanted to get attention she should’ve filed impeachment papers against the whole of Congress for “turning its back” on the American people.
Hi, I’m Tony Yokel Dokel the new CBS talking head. After the break, we have an inside exclusive report about unisex bathrooms.
Don’t change the channel.
That actually sounds like something CBS would run with pre-Bari Weiss take over. And they would of covered how it is necessary for there to be tampons in boys restrooms in public schools.
All the negative comments about everything!! It’s exhausting!!
I just finished putting up my Christmas lights and am getting ready to decorate my tree. It was $200 bucks, expensive but I thought I can dig a bit deeper to celebrate the sacrifices that our Lord Christ endured for ALL of us. I plan to make sure everyone in my circle and friends knows I love them. Merry Christmas to all!😆😎
Don’t watch cable Fox News then.
Bari Weiss taking on the Woke, ‘advocacy journalism’, critical marxist, identity politics, modernist, class struggle ‘white/cis/hetero/male/white adjacent/settler-colonialist:BIPOC-LGBTQ oppressor/oppressed dialectical paradigm besotted ideologues/Philosopher Kings and Queens of the radical left.
A battle which needs to be fought, and won, by the forces of the Enlightenment ideals of Life, Liberty, Freedom, Individual rights, and Justice.
JT is an every morning read. CBS News’ death and/or suicide? So what? I wish Bari W luck and success but a matter of importance it is not.
No surprises about the lefties with the Washington Post or CBS. The left is now fully nihilist and therefore is blindly unthinkingly obedient to its vicious and destructive ideology. They are filled with hatred of the good for being good and eagerly seek to destroy everything around themselves including their own jobs and America as a free country if they get the chance.
I saw a grocery store that was torn apart by Liberals. They set it on fire before heading down the street to a pre-school to eat babies.
One would think this is an everyday occurrence with 50% of America being liberals. Yet, it is not. What are they waiting for? Why aren’t they destroying everything around them the way that Trumplicans say they are?
The kiddies have destroyed CBS news. The only show I watch anymore is Jane Pauley’s Sunday Morining program and it has gone from great to marginal. Fire all the prmia donnas and let Barri Weiss do what she was hired to do!
Barri Weiss was hired to grind CBS into the ground and eliminate a competitor to Fox News and other Rupert Murdoch companies. There are already plenty of conservative outlets; they need to make sure they are the only outlets.
Meanwhile, CBS and the new mayor of New York City want to protect these guys. https://www.dhs.gov/wow
Keep on keepin on. It was once said that all was lost when Patrick Henry said “Give me liberty or give me death”. He fought on even when the odds were against him. Machiavelli said in his advice to the kings of the era that if you try to control a nation that has known freedom you will eventually lose in the end. Basically he said that war costs money and it should be spent where it will have the most effect.
CBS has spent its money waging war against a free people and the result predicted by Machiavelli is coming to pass. Unlike some who moan that it’s all over Patrick Henry was under no illusion that it would be easy. Grit is a great word. No Eeeyores please.
CBS was the gold standard of news journalism in the 50’s and 60’s. They will never have another Cronkite and network news will never be trusted again. The networks have sold out for ad hominem reporting of events domestic and foreign.
Not only was Cronkite a flaming liberal (i.e., socialist-cum-communist), but he was also borderline incoherent—irrationally a liberal conservative, understanding that the American Founders and their Constitution were and remain extremely conservative, promoting freedom and self-reliance bereft of communist redistribution, social engineering, and dictatorship, ostensibly of the proletariat but, in reality, of the presumed party “intellectuals.”
“I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause – but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it’s a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they’re not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they’re preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can’t be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism.”
― Walter Cronkite
Seems Turley “forgot” to mention Dokoupli’s controversial interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates last year which he was sort of reprimanded over the bias and its aggressive nature.
Plus, the title of the article is misleading. He isn’t accused of being too white. He’s accused of being mediocre and biased. One staffer’s derisive comment does not mean the entire staff believes he’s “too white” to be anchor at CBS.
It seems Bari Weiss is not having much success in revamping the network and that seems to be the bigger issue. The previous attempt to gain more viewers with the previous anchors, also a Bari Weiss decision, did not produce the results she expected.
Dokoupil is favored by Weiss because of his pro-Israel views which are shared by Weiss. This has nothing to do with race. It’s just a clash of ideologies in the network. I don’t think Dokoupil will last long though. Good luck to CBS.
You don’t like scrutiny; that’s the real issue here. Coates’ book was unbalanced and one-sided. It was nowhere near the full picture. The book was grossly lacking and took things out of context. Tony Dokoupil wasn’t unfair in challenging Coate’s narrative. That is his job! The interview wasn’t “biased”; it was holding a one-sided narrative to basic scrutiny.
This is your failure George Svelaz. You are unable to move away from extreme leftist talking points, balancing them with reality. Your attempt at debate is an embarrassment.
S. Meyer,
Great comment!!
S. Meyer, “Coates’ book was unbalanced and one-sided. It was nowhere near the full picture. The book was grossly lacking and took things out of context.”
So?
Tony’s interview was not just “basic scrutiny”. He was actively lobbying tor Israel’s position in an interview. As a journalist he went beyond just “asking questions”.
According to the right, journalists are supposed to be objective, not activist like Tony was. He even admitted he violated the networks journalistic standards when he was reprimanded because of that interview.
You still have not mastered the ability to read for comprehension.
What did Dokoupil do? Coates has extremist, unbalanced positions. Therefore, an antisemite or extreme leftist would be unhinged by any questions that balanced Coates’ narrative. Why was it unfair to ask Coates if Israel had a right to exist?
CBS leadership is far left and hired Barry Weiss, who is on the left, to move CBS from the far left to the left. Any reprimand by CBS is proof of nothing except that CBS has lost its way
Coates has no obligation to be balanced. He has a story to tell. Moby Dick did not include the perspective of the whale; how it got there, what motivated it, what happened to friends and family. There is a lot of difficulty in telling a balanced story of Gaza when the IDF targets journalists and food aid workers.
A more accurate point is that some individuals presenting themselves as journalists were later found to be involved in militant activity, including holding Israeli civilians. It’s entirely appropriate for an interviewer to question a writer’s narrative; that’s normal journalism. Criticizing the interviewer for asking tough questions suggests a selective view of free speech: speech for authors you agree with, but not for those who challenge them.
Thank you. I was just thinking how to appropriately reply to Mr. Svelaz and you did it for me. Again, thank you.
They tried to write a full-picture book, but by the time it described, in detail, the entire lives of nearly 80 Million people living in the area of modern day Israel, going back some 5,000 years, it became too much. Running nearly 4 Billion pages it was expected to take an average reader nearly 2,000 years just to skim it.
There is already the thoroughly scrubbed IDF/Zionist view of the non-human infestation that they hope to eradicate, in their own words. Coates’ book is simply the completed part the public relations/propaganda narritive leaves out.
When you have to lean on 4-billion-page sarcasm and cartoon propaganda claims, you’re admitting you don’t have facts; just slogans dressed up as insight.
Yea right X, you are now trying to tell us it’s just one bad apple at CBS who is saying he’s too white.
In the past you’ve praised the people who use the word white with obvious disdain. Now your coming around with your it’s just one or two. We know minimizing when we see it. An early frost on an apple tree can make the whole damn tree go bad. An early frost has been going on at CBS for years and the fruit that has fallen to the ground has been left to rot. You can feel the apples squish under your feet as you walk on them. The best that can be done is to clean up the orchard and move on even if the worms don’t like it.
Thinkitthrough, Yes, only one staffer made the comment, but Turley intentionally leaves the impression on his readers that is why Tony Dokouplis is being despised.
“In the past you’ve praised the people who use the word white with obvious disdain.”
And what might that be? You have a quote you can cite?
“An early frost on an apple tree can make the whole damn tree go bad. An early frost has been going on at CBS for years and the fruit that has fallen to the ground has been left to rot. You can feel the apples squish under your feet as you walk on them. The best that can be done is to clean up the orchard and move on even if the worms don’t like it.”
Weird analogy, but nevertheless Weiss is not doing a good job so far. Ratings are still not going up and her previous idea crashed and burned. This one seems to be on shaky ground as well. Tony’s biases will certainly not be a problem with those on the right, BUT….who on the right is going to flock to see watch him when they can get all they need from Fox News already?
As Turley noted CBS has been third in ratings for a long time. Weiss’ appointment as chief editor doesn’t seem like it will right that ship anytime soon.
“right that ship.”
Wonder where georgie has seen those words in the last few days. hmmmm, Was it this blog?
Who cares where CBS is in ratings? What matters is where they are in selling advertising vs. the cost of production.
So someone was actually fair and tough against a Jew hating leftist and that is you complaint against the guy?
Mr. Opposite, the human pretzel doing his George Costanza routine.
Fair and tough? ROLF!
He violated the network’s journalistic standards. Even Tony admitted it.
There was much more than just being “fair and tough”.
. Nothing more needs to be said because if George Svalez was correct, we would all be surprised.
hullbobby, If you understood grammar you would understand just how stupidly crafted your first sentence is.