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Megyn Kelly didn’t hold back this week when she mocked Tony Dokoupil’s first days as anchor of the CBS Evening News, dubbing him “Toprah” for what she called his constant attempts to therapize viewers rather than report hard facts. Kelly’s blunt admonition — “just fucking deliver the news” — captured a broader frustration among viewers who tune in for reporting, not pep talks or moral tone-setting.
The ratings tell the same story Kelly described: Dokoupil’s debut week averaged about 4.17 million viewers, down roughly 23 percent year-over-year from the show’s numbers last January. Those are disastrous trends for a program that already sits behind ABC and NBC; the numbers prove that audiences will vote with their remotes when networks substitute sermonizing for journalism.
Critics point to more than tone. Clips of the new anchor tearing up in promotional spots, along with awkward teleprompter miscues, have stoked questions about whether CBS chose the right person to represent its flagship broadcast. Watching an anchor break down on camera during a promo is not strength; it’s a reminder that viewers still expect steadiness in the evening hour.
A lot of the chaos traces back to the network’s rebranding under new leadership, with Bari Weiss installed as editor-in-chief and Dokoupil tapped as Weiss’s marquee hire to revitalize the broadcast. Conservatives who value competence over virtue signaling warned that appointing a culture-warrior with little broadcast résumé overhaul experience would invite experiments that alienate the core audience, and those warnings are looking prescient as viewers tune out.
Kelly and others accused Dokoupil of patronizing the audience — “Stuart Smalley vibes,” she said — treating Americans like they need therapy instead of straight reporting. That’s a fair critique: ordinary people don’t want an anchor who talks down to them or seeks to appear woke-sympathetic; they want someone who will tell them what happened, why it matters, and who to hold accountable.
This isn’t about masculinity theatre; it’s about competence and trust. Kelly’s barbs about Dokoupil’s emotional tone and perceived softness reflect a deeper conservative demand: bring back rigorous, no-nonsense journalism that treats viewers as adults. Networks that ignore that basic market truth do so at their own peril — ratings don’t care about woke branding, they care about trust and clarity.
If CBS hopes to recover, it needs to stop punting to style over substance and to stop using the flagship evening newscast as an identity-projecting vehicle. Megyn Kelly called it plainly: deliver the news. The rest is noise — and the American people are showing they have had enough of the noise.
