Along with the liberal media meltdowns that resulted from incoming CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil’s brief commentary Thursday about the state of the legacy media, the onslaught continued Friday and into the weekend following both the publication of the newscast’s core values and subsequent think pieces and anonymously-sourced invective at Dokoupil and CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
The “5 simple values” replace what was “once a 38-page handbook” and make complete sense, representing yet another step forward in its promise to appeal to, listen to, and work for all Americans. Read these and try to see how many of them would trigger liberals (spoiler alert: all of them).
First up in the meltdowns was Jusin Baragona, currently with The Independent (and formerly with The Daily Beast and Zeteo). His piece went for the shock value, right from the headline: “Private jets, armed security and ‘Bari pitches’ including jet-skiing with DJ Khaled: Inside Weiss’ chaotic ‘CBS Evening News’ reboot.”
Baragona began by contrasting Dokoupil’s video about “claim[ing] that legacy media has ignored the views of the ‘average American’” with his own anonymous source telling him “Weiss is scoping out a private jet and a troop of armed guards to facilitate her participation in a multi-million dollar tour of the country” for Dokoupil’s first two weeks as anchor.
The tour – which was supposed to consist of Dokoupil anchoring the show from a different city – has now been postponed due to the U.S. military action in Venezuela.
He claimed “three sources” told him Weiss’s desire to use a private plane to go between cities “has raised eyebrows over her desire to be on location for each telecast.”
Baragona found one source to unload on how much they hate working for Weiss and thus want to destroy her from the inside (click “expand”):
“Nothing says ‘meeting Americans where they are’ by flying around the country on a private jet costing millions of dollars,” one network staffer said.
“And if her security detail is such a huge concern, why is she going? She could watch from the control room or on an actual TV like everyone else,” the source added. “Instead CBS News has to foot the bill for her five security guards, private jet, and more guards with heavy weapons. Does she not understand how much journalism could be made with the money we’re instead spending on perks for her?”
A few graphs later, Baragona buried the admission that a separate source reminded him it’s “not…uncommon for a broadcast network to charter a private plane for one of its primetime news anchors and upper-end management to fly…especially” if it “involves a number of different cities across the country in a short period of time.”
“In fact, many news organizations have rules in place dictating which talent and leadership figures are entitled to chartered flights or first-class accommodations,” he added.
Oh, really?
The rest of the piece comes off as far-left staffers bellyaching to Baragona about how they’re no longer in charge at CBS News.
Baragona insisted Weiss’s torrent off story ideas for Dokoupil’s cross-country tour have been “last-minute” over the holidays, triggered “turmoil,” and left “depressing” and “plummeting morale” with CBS News staff “increasingly concerned that the relaunch will be a ‘car crash’” that will mark “the end of CBS Evening News.”
He found a Mean Girl to take a swipe at Evening News executive producer Kim Harvey: “She is a yes person that is not just drinking the Bari Kool-Aid, but like injecting it in her veins, because that's how she survives.”
Someone also leaked extensive details about ideas for certain stops (click “expand”):
According to network sources, some of the locations Weiss has requested include restaurants that appeal to tourists and upscale private schools.
(….)
[S]egments pitched for Dokoupil’s first stop in Miami this Monday, January 5, include a discussion with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the state’s school phone ban, a piece on the “loss of trust” in the media, and why Miami’s Venezuelan population has turned on Trump amid the administration’s mass deportations.
The show is also planning on light and fun segments known as “bon bons” that will be spotlighted on social media. In a dizzying array of options, Dokoupil will either play soccer with Inter Miami CF co-owner David Beckham; ask locals if they call it the “Gulf of America” or “Gulf of Mexico,” after the Trump administration’s name change; party at one of the city’s exclusive nightclubs (either Club Space or LIV) or join a boat party that will see the anchor jet skiing with rapper DJ Khaled.
(….)
As of publication, the “Minnesota episode”/Jan. 13 show will have a lead segment on the “Minnesota Fraud Scandal,” which centers on the yearslong Justice Department investigation of multimillion dollar fraud schemes targeting federal assistance programs. The story has blown up in conservative media in recent days due to the number of Somali Americans charged in the probe and a right-wing YouTuber’s viral video of daycare centers that made unverified claims of fraud.
It is also planned to ask [Minneapolis Mayor Jacob] Frey “why doesn’t rent control work,” referring to the Democratic mayor’s longstanding opposition to rent control policies while twin city St. Paul has enacted a rent stabilization ordinance, and a segment on political violence focusing on the recent assassinations of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman.
In a January 14 broadcast from Chicago, according to the call sheet, the main focus is planned to be on a “Bari Pitch” to bring on former President Barack Obama and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on to discuss “how the Dems lost touch and how to regain the working class trust.”
The other story ideas include Dokoupil riding the L Train with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and asking him about the racial life expectancy gap in Chicago; a piece on crime rates falling in the Second City “but do residents feel safer,” and another “Bari Pitch” on the city’s “abysmal schools.”
Over at Status, Jon Passantino was also afflicted by a serious case of coping and seething, particularly as it pertained to Dokoupil’s Thursday monologue validating those who no longer trust the press.
Passantino screeched Dokoupil delivered “a clear dog whistle to those on the right who have long nurtured grievances about news coverage that fails to comport with their worldview.”
Like the biased tool that he is, he painted a picture in which the right, center, and left have all come to hate Dokoupil and this reimagined CBS News, ignoring those who’ve publicly weighed in with messages of support (click “expand”):
If the goal of the message was to rebuild trust, it’s hard to say it was a success. Right-wing media personality Megyn Kelly shredded Dokoupil’s statement, telling her audience “nothing will happen at CBS,” “legacy media is dead,” and that the “evening news has been totally irrelevant for a long time.” Others in MAGA Media also shared her sentiment.
Meanwhile, journalists and media observers joined in criticizing Dokoupil’s framing.
“The audience is the average American but the validator of accuracy is not the audience,” wrote Nicholas Riccardi, a national political reporter for The Associated Press. “The customer is not always right, especially in the news business.”
Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, was more scathing. “You wouldn’t want ‘academics and elites’ who have actually studied a subject to outweigh the off-the-cuff opinions of village idiots,” he wrote. “This is how we’re seeing the resurgence of measles and the widespread belief in almost non-existent vote fraud. Cronkite would be so very proud of you.”
He argued “the mission to rebuild public trust is a worthy one,” but his definition sure seems to be one of authoritarian submission and forced acceptance of liberal progressive narratives where all that ails the country is the fault of moronic, uneducated conservatives.
“Confidence in the mainstream press has eroded amid years of sustained attacks from right-wing media and Republican officials…But sidelining ‘academics and elites’ who have spent decades studying subjects to develop a deep understanding in a field—a clear appeal to the MAGA audience—has already been tried across the industry, with grim results,” he whined.
On the five core values, Passantino also deemed the reaction one-sided, saying it “was hammered by commenters as a loss of credibility” and “state-media-like language” that indicates CBS News won’t rest their “loyalty” in “facts and truth,” but “patriotic affirmation.”
The sophomoric missive concluded CBS News seems hellbent on “push[ing] aside subject matter experts while obnoxiously waving the American flag in front of viewers” with “neither…typically associated with journalism.”
Mediaite editor-in-chief Colby Hall also took issue with the core values, particularly the fourth that declared:
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.
Hall argued this was “unnecessary” because it’s already a “background condition,” adding: “It lived in the authority of the anchor chair, the cadence of the broadcast, and the institutional confidence of the networks. Love of country was not a value statement.”
Further, he huffed it was wrong because it “functions as an attempt to anchor journalism to the one institution that still carries broad emotional resonance: the country. Not the press. Not expertise. America.”
In Hall’s muddled diagnosis, however, legitimacy should come through the fact that we, the people, already trust the anchor and a prestigious network like CBS (click “expand”):
Once loving the country becomes a stated editorial value, journalism inherits a bias toward institutional legitimation rather than institutional scrutiny. When institutions fail or behave corruptly, reporters face a built-in tension: describe the breakdown fully, or protect the civic identity they have pledged allegiance to.
This tension is familiar. It distorted political journalism between 2016 and 2020, when calling institutional failure what it was often felt destabilizing or irresponsible. Patriotism, once declared, becomes a constraint on description.
(….)
Transparency, demonstrated accuracy, and subject-matter expertise matter, but they don’t recreate mass legitimacy at broadcast scale. They work in niches. They don’t rebuild a civic commons.
(….)
The risk isn’t that CBS says it loves America. The risk is that in trying to borrow legitimacy from the country, it discovers that love is not a reporting standard, and no declaration can replace authority that once came built in.
