CBS News appointed Tony Dokoupil as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” on Wednesday, charging him with taking on ABC's dominant David Muir on one of the flagship shows for broadcast television.
Dokoupil, who has been part of the “CBS Mornings” team since 2019, will start his new job on Jan. 5, 2026. He replaces the anchor team of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, who both left the network in recent month.
Dokoupil is the first major hire for Bari Weiss, the Free Press founder who was appointed CBS News editor-in-chief this fall after the network's corporate takeover by Paramount.
“We live in a time in which many people have lost trust in the media,” Weiss said. “Tony Dokoupil is the person to win it back. That's because he believes in old school journalistic values — asking the hard questions, following the facts wherever they lead and holding power to account.”
He's got a challenge. The “CBS Evening News” has long ranked third among the broadcast network evening news shows, and this year has just over half the audience of ABC's “World News Tonight.”
