Tony Dokoupil promises to be more "accountable" and "transparent" than Walter Cronkite

The new anchor of the CBS Evening News responded to critics in his Instagram comments.

By Drew Gillis | January 5, 2026 | 11:02am

Screenshot: CBS/YouTube

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Tony Dokoupil may still be very new at the CBS News anchor desk—his tenure started on Saturday, earlier than expected, thanks to the Trump administration’s attack in Venezuela—but he already sees himself in esteemed company. On Friday, Dokoupil and CBS News shared a video wherein Dokoupil claimed that other news organizations placed too much emphasis on the “analysis of academics or elites.” When that video was shared on Instagram, one person commented (via Variety), “I grew up on Cronkite. Too bad CBS has lost its Tiffany shine. But good luck to you anyway.” In an Instagram comment of his own, Dokoupil responded, “What did you love most about him? I can promise you we’ll be more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or any one else of his era.”

We’ll let you decide whether the CBS of Cronkite’s era would have, say, killed a rigorous investigation into a torture prison in El Salvador. Dokoupil, however, had other comments to reply to. When former CBS News correspondent Don Dahler said that the speech “sounds like it was written by Bari Weiss,” the new Evening News anchor responded, “nope, I wrote it. I spent the first half of my career as a print journalist. If the Internet had never been invented, I probably still would be a print journalist. Writing is my first form.”

Dokoupil’s tenure at the Evening News desk begins in earnest tonight, with a planned kickoff in Miami. The stop is the first of a planned 10-city “Live From America” tour, with stops in cities including Detroit, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. The Independent reports that CBS News head Bari Weiss has chartered a private jet for the journey, which has once again upset many staffers.

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