Megyn Kelly, the podcasting host and former Fox News star, says CBS News is in an irreversible decline, and no matter how executives try to revamp the network, it will not work. The perennially third-place “CBS Evening News” is set to undergo yet another revamp on January 5. It will be hosted by Tony Dokoupil, the former host of “CBS Mornings” and husband of MS NOW star Katy Tur. The shakeup comes roughly a year after CBS News executives, who have since been forced out, tried to revamp the program with an unusual dual-anchor format hosted by lesser-known personalities, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, who lasted barely a year. The already low ratings of the “Evening News” cratered when the duo replaced Norah O’Donnell in a cost-cutting move, and a strange format engineered by a “60 Minutes” producer alienated viewers.On Thursday, CBS News released a promotional video for the revamp of the “Evening News.” Mr. Dokoupil addressed Americans’ lack of trust in the mainstream media, which he attributed, in part, to journalists focusing too much on the “perspective of advocates and not the average Americans” or putting “too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.”“I know this because, at certain points, I have been you. I have felt that 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 said. “So here’s my promise to you, as long as I sit in this chair: you come first. Not advertisers. Not politicians. Not corporate interests. And, yes, that does include the corporate owners of CBS.”Mr. Dokoupil is planning a tour of ten different cities over ten days to “truly” listen to Americans as he kicks off his news hosting gig. However, Ms. Kelly doubted that major changes were on the horizon at CBS News. “Nothing will happen at CBS. Nothing. Legacy media is dead and evening news has been totally irrelevant for a long time,” she wrote on X. “CBS has not had evening viewers in any competitive way in more than a decade. It’s not reversible.”A conservative commentator at the New York Post, Miranda Devine, also appeared skeptical of Mr. Dokoupil’s pledge, writing, “Very nice. Let’s see what happens.”The revamp of CBS News comes as the network’s parent company, Paramount, was acquired by Skydance. The chief executive of Skydance, David Ellison, made written commitments to the Trump Administration that CBS would produce fair journalism under his management. Mr. Ellison brought on Bari Weiss, the founder of the pro-Israel, anti-woke site the Free Press, to serve as CBS News’s editor-in-chief. He also hired a former president of the conservative Hudson Institute, Kenneth Weinstein, to serve as an ombudsman and evaluate complaints of bias. After the acquisition of Paramount was finalized, Mr. Ellison signaled to reporters that he wanted to make CBS News into an outlet that Democrats and Republicans feel they could watch. However, the liberal staffers at CBS News have bucked the new management’s wishes. “60 Minutes” has continued to produce segments that are critical of President Trump. In December, the newsmagazine program interviewed Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was for several years an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump but has recently become a frequent critic. During the interview, Ms. Greene said her family received death threats because Mr. Trump labeled her a “traitor.”After the interview, the president posted on Truth Social, “My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”In a separate post, he wrote, “For those people that think I am close with the new owners of CBS, please understand that 60 Minutes has treated me far worse since the so-called ‘takeover,’ than they have ever treated me before. If they are friends, I’d hate to see my enemies!”Another instance of CBS staffers bucking their bosses came late last month when the network pulled a “60 Minutes” segment about the maximum security prison in El Salvador, where the Trump Administration sent some deported Venezuelan migrants. The story asserted that the administration wrongfully sent the men to be tortured and sexually abused. The correspondent behind the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, said in an internal email that was promptly leaked to elite news outlets that the decision to pull the piece was not “an editorial decision,” but a “political one.” Axios reported that the Trump Administration did provide extensive written comments for the story, but those comments were not included or even acknowledged in the final script, creating the misimpression that the Trump Administration had stonewalled CBS News.While the “60 Minutes” story was pulled, it could be viewed in full online after a Canadian partner of CBS aired it. CBS News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment.
