‘Feminization of the Newsroom’: CBS News’ Tony Dokoupil Is Mocked for Crying On Air in Latest Blow to Awkward Roll-Out

CBS’s new “Evening News” star, Tony Dokoupil, is being mocked by former Fox News star Megyn Kelly and others for becoming emotional on the air while talking about growing up in Florida. The launch of Mr. Dokoupil’s tenure as the anchor of the “Evening News” has been plagued by criticism of its writing, various flubs, and an on-air “salute” to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Ms. Kelly, who commands a large online audience, mocked Mr. Dokoupil for tearing up while talking about his hometown of Miami. “There’s no crying in evening news. There might be some crying when a president is shot and assassinated right before your very eyes,” Ms. Kelly said during a recent episode of her podcast “The Megyn Kelly Show.” She added, “There was, like, a wiping of the eyes as he took off his glasses to report that JFK had been shot and killed. But that was as far as he went, that’s as far as most evening news anchors ever would have gone, traditionally.”“You want to talk about ‘feminization of the newsroom,’ I give you the new CBS evening news anchor,” Ms. Kelly said before playing a clip that was used to promote the revamp of the “Evening News.”Mr. Dokoupil grew emotional, wiping his eyes multiple times, as he spoke about his Miami upbringing, “To help people understand why I have such a reaction. Florida’s where I grew up … My grandmother’s here, my father, my mother, my aunts and uncles, cousins, and it’s where I would have spent all of my childhood. But we left because my father got in some trouble with business. We laugh about it now, but he was a drug dealer, and he went to jail.”He said he felt that he was “robbed of the full Miami experience.”Ms. Kelly responded, “Oh my God. It’s a no … I thought for sure that story was going to end in ‘…and they were all killed in a house fire. I was the sole survivor,’ in which case I would’ve excused the multiple tears.”“Turns out the dad had some problems. I’m sorry to hear it. The sobbing, the repeated voice quivering, the inability to recover, what is that?” she asked. Her guest, veteran journalist Mark Halperin, quipped, “First of all, the guy’s got hella good hair, so I give him that.”Mr. Halperin said that he sometimes gets emotional talking about his family, but that he would not put out a video of himself crying.“I don’t know why they chose to put it out,” he said.A film critic, John Rocha, wrote, “When you forget that the most famous scene in ‘Broadcast News’ is a cautionary tale and not a blueprint. Lord Almighty, this Dokoupil clown. The sad truth is that there are a lot of on camera people who mock up tears to try to generate sympathy with the audience. I’ve even seen it in my section of the business! It’s shameful, manipulative and downright pathetic.”“Him trying to cry here is actually more embarrassing than ‘big problems’ last night,” another user said. Another viewer said, “In the mark of a true hardened newsman, Tony Dorkmunder gets more emotional asked about his childhood in Miami than Walter Cronkite did covering the Kennedy assassination. I like my news anchors who aren’t wuses given what’s happening in this world.”Mr. Dokoupil did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication. Mr. Dokoupil and CBS were mocked earlier this week over some apparent confusion about the order of the stories he was presenting. He has faced criticism for a brief mention of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and for offering a “salute” to Mr. Rubio. Mr. Dokoupil officially took over as the host of the “Evening News” on Monday. The shake-up comes as CBS is once again trying to boost the ratings for the “Evening News,” which trailed its competitors in ratings. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the “Evening News” averaged just over 4 million total viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” averaged 6.2 million total viewers, and ABC’s “World News Tonight” averaged 7.8 million viewers. The Tiffany Network revamped the “Evening News” in January 2025, replacing host Norah O’Donnell with John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois. The decision was seen as an attempt to cut costs by bringing in lower-paid hosts to replace Ms. O’Donnell. However, it quickly became a debacle, and ratings plunged. Its fourth-quarter ratings in 2025 were down 12 percent compared to the previous year. Ratings for Monday’s episode were released, showing that 4.4 million viewers tuned in. That marks an increase of roughly 500,000 viewers from when the show was hosted by John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois. The show also saw a 20 percent increase in the key 25-to-54-year-old demo.Network news observers typically say that it is common for shows to experience a temporary boost in viewership after a revamp. It was expected that executives would make changes to the “Evening News” after Skydance Media acquired CBS last summer. The chief executive of Skydance, David Ellison, had signaled he wanted to clean up the network’s left-wing slant and turn it into one that Democrats and Republicans could watch. To spearhead his effort, he brought on the anti-woke, pro-Israel journalist Bari Weiss to serve as CBS’s editor-in-chief after he acquired her company, the Free Press. Since Mr. Ellison acquired CBS, there have been questions about how successful he would be in shifting the network to the center. Its flagship news program, “60 Minutes,” has continued to run stories critical of the Trump Administration. However, a segment about the administration’s decision to send Venezuelan migrants, who were in the country illegally, to a prison in El Salvador was withheld due to concerns that it did not provide enough context or new information. It also did not include comments from the government or interviews with administration officials responsible for crafting that policy, even though the administration had provided detailed comments. In the final segment, which could be seen online because it accidentally aired in Canada, the “60 Minutes” correspondent merely said that the Trump Administration had refused to sit down for an interview, creating a misimpression.CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

‘Feminization of the Newsroom’: CBS News’ Tony Dokoupil Is Mocked for Crying On Air in Latest Blow to Awkward Roll-Out

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