CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil on Thursday reported the news that his network’s parent company is poised to acquire CNN.
Earlier in the day, Netflix announced that it would no longer bid on Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, meaning Paramount CEO David Ellison is on track to run not only CBS’s newsroom but CNN’s as well.
“Netflix says it will not raise its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery to match a rival bid by Paramount Skydance, which, of course, is the parent company of CBS News,” Dokoupil noted. “Netflix called the deal ‘no longer financially attractive’ after the Warner Bros. board said that the Paramount offer was better.”
Paramount earlier this week upped its offer to $31 per share for the entirety of the media conglomerate.
Dokoupil, 45, may soon share a boss with CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper. Cooper last week announced he would be leaving his correspondent role at 60 Minutes, where CBS News editor-in-chief has been at the center of controversy over editorial decisions.
Cooper did not say Weiss factored into his choice to leave, but reporting by Status said Cooper was at odds with the “rightward direction” under Weiss and Ellison.
Dokoupil seems to be on board with it.
In one of his first broadcasts since taking over at the beginning of the year, the anchor gave a “salute” to Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the “ultimate Florida man.”
On Tuesday, Dokoupil called Donald Trump’s State of the Union address “extraordinary.”
“It was an extraordinary speech,” he said. “The longest to a joint session in history, the longest State of the Union address in history. In some ways, vintage Trump: combative, populist, historic for other reasons as well.”
Dokoupil also introduced his show by claiming that “legacy media” had mishandled stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop, Hillary Clinton’s emails, and “the president’s fitness for office.”
“On too many stories, the press has missed the story, because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you,” said Dokoupil, a former Daily Beast reporter who graduated at the top of his class at George Washington University.
Dokoupil and his wife, MS NOW anchor Katy Tur, live in one of Brooklyn’s most expensive enclaves with their two children.
With Dokoupil at the helm of the CBS Evening News, the show saw at least 11 staffers take buyouts. Dokoupil’s predecessor, John Dickerson, quit last fall.
Weiss is also reportedly planning to lay off at least 15 percent of CBS staffers. A round of layoffs occurred last October.
