For the record, I did watch the onset of the Tony Dokoupil era of the CBS EVENING NEWS and, for whatever it’s worth, for me he didn’t evoke any memories of Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather or even Jeff Glor. But he did remind me an awful lot of Tom Grunick.
Oh, c’mon you millennials and younger, stop giving me the eyeroll. Anyone who’s ever had a work crush should damn well know at least the plot line of James L. Brooks’ BROADCAST NEWS, one of his first theatrical productions back at a time when audiences actually wanted to see his style of work. Wikipedia can catch you up as tothe key plot points:
Jane Craig is a talented, intense news producer who is passionate about reporting and abhors the trend towards soft news in broadcasts. Her best friend and collaborator, Aaron Altman, is a gifted writer and reporter lacking in social skills. The two work in the Washington, D.C. bureau of a national TV network. The bureau hires Tom Grunick, a local news anchor who is handsome, likable, and telegenic but lacks news experience and isn’t especially bright.
That was all central casting, and since Jane Craig was played by one of my first true screen crushes, Holly Hunter, this one really hits home. Our hero Grunick was portrayed by William Hurt, a bohunk veteran of such previous hits as KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN and BODY HEAT where he charmed a generation of women I rarely got to interact with those aforementioned id-inflaming qualities. And yours truly has indeed been Aaron Altman, portrayed expertly by Albert Brooks, for pretty much his entire adult life.
But in this case Craig exists in the form of Bari Weiss, who brings those qualities to her new real-life gig as the czarina of CBS NEWS and amplifies them to an 11, without any possibility of the romantic triangle that eventually brings Hunter and Hurt together. Dokoupil is absolutely the embodiment of Grunick, and based upon the X-eets and Threads posts that have dominated my own social media feeds is bringing out the Brooks/Altman in practically everyone I know with itchy thumbs and an overwhelming need to voice an opinion. And it started last week when Dokoupil dropped a manifesto that much like Grunick was clearly authored by an impassioned producer talking into his ear. Per MEDIAITE’s Alex Griffing:
CBS News kicked up a fierce debate on Friday when it released a series of promotional posts on social media, laying out its 5 core values ahead of Tony Dokoupil’s CBS Evening News debut on Monday. Dokoupil released a clip on Thursday in which he slammed legacy media and acknowledged “people don’t trust us like they used to.”
His show launches with 5 new principles:
1. We work for you. That means you come first. Not our advertisers. Not politicians. Not corporate interests, including the corporate owners of CBS News.
2. We report on the world as it is. We’ll be honest and direct with you. That means no weasel words or padded landings. We’ll tell you what we know, when we know it. Well update our reporting when we uncover new facts. And we’ll admit when we get it wrong.
3. We respect you. We believe that our fellow Americans are smart and discerning. It’s our job to present you with the fullest picture — and the strongest voices on all sides of an issue. We trust you to make up your own minds, and to make the decisions that are best for you, your families and your communities.
4. We love America. And we make no apologies for saying so. Our foundational values of liberty, equality and the rule of law make us the last best hope on Earth. We also believe in Franklin’s famous line about America as a republic — if we can keep it. We aim to do our part every night: One way to think about our show is as a daily conversation about exactly where we are as a country and where we are going.
5. We respect tradition, but we also believe in the future. We embrace the tools that allow us to reach you where you are. Some of you will watch this show on linear television. Others will increasingly watch it on social media. What we can guarantee is that the tools will continue to change — but some things never will. One of those things is honest journalism.
Yesterday, SEMAFOR’s Max Tani threw a little more oil onto the dumpster fire with his assessment of his accelerated weekend premiere courtesy of the midnight raid of Pete Hegseth’s G.I. Joes:
In his opening monologue, Dokoupil lamented that his colleagues in the news business had leaned too much into the perspectives of subject matter experts. “The press has missed the story because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American, or we’ve put too much weight in the analysis of academics and elites, and not enough on you. I know this because, at certain points, I have been you. I have felt this way too. I have felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn’t reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life.”
He continued: “So here’s my promise to you, today and every time you see me in this chair: You come first. Not advertisers. Not politicians. Not corporate interests — and yes, that does include the corporate owners of CBS. I report for you.”
Yeah, I’ll join the parade of snarkers who called bullsh-t on this, especially the ones savvy enough to realize that Dokoupil was merely as much of a script-reader as the real-life Grunicks that sit in anchor chairs around the country. But especially for a generation that has been raised on the overvaluation of mission statements, anyone who suggests that this was out of line for a journalist has completely missed the point that this was issued by an employee of a commercial broadcaster. So the only things that actually mater to Dokoupil, and more specifically Bari Weiss, is whether or not more adults 35-64 who buy products that advertise on her show watch than did before. And as evidence by the ratings trajectory of the ill-fated duo that elevated an actual local news anchor (Maurice Dubois) to share hosting honors with a national news lifer with true DNA who had “established” himself as a trailblazing host of a primetime hour on a global streaming service that was watched by fewer eyeballs than Dubois was on a third-place owned-and-operated station, the bar for success is awfully low.
So I truly do wonder if the choir that’s been contributing to the compendium of commentary that Griffing compiled was actually part of of the statistically small minority that has habitually watched the CBS EVENING NEWS recently, or is merely relying on muscle memory of long-ago days in a competitive landscape that has nothing in common with the ones that Weiss and her puppet are attempting to make hay in. And the same data points that confirm that the likelihood that this is a representative sample also confirm that even the most loyal are more likely to be occasional viewers. A decade ago I took a deep dive into the viewing frequency of five-day-a-week shows, and at that time the average viewer watched 1.1 times a week. I will literally bet my last dollar–please don’t press me for more, I don’t have it–that it’s gone south of the Mendoza line since then.
And I will also yet again remind those of you that what will determine whether Dokoupil continues to sit in that chair, and for that matter if Weiss continues to get to inflict her agenda upon America, is whether or not those numbers move in a favorable direction. That includes the P&L for the broadcast, too.
You can take heart that they’ve not made their task any easier at the outset. Weiss is reportedly traveling with an entourage of five security guards by private jet, and the last-minute changes necessitated by this weekend’s events only added to that tab. And Dokoupil enters with a track record that was anything but overwhelming–remember he’s been the co-anchor of the third-place morning news on the same network with half the audience that the underwhelming show he’s now helming has had. It’s not like he’s bringing in a fan base that will need to go out of its way to discover what and where CBS is these days.
So if you really don’t want what you believe is an insult to democracy to succeed, I have two terse words of advice for you. Don’t watch.
And FFS, if you make that choice, spare all of us with the damn declaration and call to action of a “boycott”. Enough with your self-flaggelating reminders that you’re defending democracy or making the world a better place for your grandchildren once you’re gone. You’re not that grandiose when you decide not to watch an episode of GHOSTS or DMV. That’s all you’re doing in this case–choosing not to watch a TV show. And statistics insist your grandchildren haven’t even heard of CBS let alone had any plans to watch it.
It’s BROADCAST news, kids. And yes, the emphasis of the words is intentional.
Until next time…