CBS fed its new evening news anchor to the proverbial wolves by forcing Tony Dokoupil to beg commuting New Yorkers to try and say his name.
The 45-year-old Dokoupil attempted to get travelers in the Big Apple’s iconic Grand Central Terminal to pronounce his name in an awkward social media video posted to the CBS Evening News X account on Wednesday.
Holding a paper with his name written on it, Dokoupil asks scores of disinterested commuters how they’d pronounce “Dokoupil.” Various New Yorkers read it as “Da-koo-puhl” and “Da-koo-peel” before Dokoupil gives them the proper pronunciation (which is “Da-koe-puhl”).
At one point, he accosts a commuter, who asks, “Are you running for office, or something?”
“No, I’m gonna anchor the CBS Evening News!” he replies to the woman’s unimpressed reaction. “You know, with Walter Cronkite? I’m the new guy! I start January 5th.” “Uncle Walter” Cronkite was the CBS Evening News anchor from 1962 until he retired in 1981. He died in 2009.
Later on, he stands in one spot and asks a passerby, “How do you say this name?,” to which he receives a disinterested “I don’t know.” He then asks another, “Do you know how to say this name?” and gets a simple “I do not.” While riding an elevator, he asks a man passing him, “How would you say this name?” The guy replies, “I wouldn’t.”
One woman of Slovak descent recognizes Dokoupil’s Czech name and pronounces it correctly.
The video inspired secondhand embarrassment as it spread on social media.
“Bari Weiss really knows how to find the talent,” quipped journalist Zaid Jilani.
Former CNN en Español anchor Carlos Montero wrote, “I thought CBS couldn’t sink any lower with Bari Weiss but they keep surprising me.”
CBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Dokoupil, a former Daily Beast writer who is married to MS Now’s Katy Tur, has anchored CBS’s morning show, CBS Mornings, since 2019.
In 2024, he drew criticism for giving a tense interview with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates in which he grilled the writer on Israel’s right to exist. During the interview, he said Coates’ book on the Israel/Palestine conflict, The Message, wouldn’t be out of place in the “backpack of an extremist.” CBS News executives said the interview didn’t meet editorial standards.
That happened before parent company Paramount installed self-described zionist Bari Weiss as CBS News’ editor-in-chief in October, despite her having no prior broadcast journalism experience. At the time of the Coates interview, her anti-woke publication The Free Press published an article defending Dokoupil.
“It is journalists like Tony Dokoupil who are an endangered species in legacy news organizations, which are wilting under the pressures of this new elite consensus,” the story by “the editors” said.
In December, she handed CBS’s vacant evening news anchor job to Dokoupil, much to the disgruntlement of CBS employees.
“It’s an insult to the storied news giants who came before him,” one CBS reporter told The Independent. “He’s clearly been rewarded with the Evening News throne. Although, some might argue it’s more of a toilet seat now.”
