Amid the rising backlash to new host Tony Dokoupil’s lately outlined reporting technique, “CBS Night Information” unveiled Friday the “5 easy rules” it vows to observe starting with Monday’s broadcast.
“We promise to dwell by these 5 easy rules – from our very first present on the street, to our first broadcast on the brand new set in New York, and each one after that,” the “CBS Night Information” account wrote Friday on X. In subsequent replies, this system shared its 5 guiding values.
“We give you the results you want,” the primary tweet purports. “Which means you come first. Not our advertisers. Not politicians. Not company pursuits, together with the company homeowners of CBS Information.”
The reassurance comes after months of many each inside and outdoors the information business voicing their issues concerning the position that new CBS company homeowners Paramount and the community’s first-ever Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss may have in shaping its route transferring ahead.
“We report on the world as it’s,” the 5 rules proceed. “We’ll be trustworthy and direct with you. Which means no weasel phrases or padded landings. We’ll inform you what we all know, once we comprehend it. We’ll replace our reporting once we uncover new info. And we’ll admit once we get it unsuitable.”
“We respect you,” the third worth guarantees. “We imagine that our fellow People are good and discerning. It’s our job to current you with the fullest image — and the strongest voices on all sides of a problem. We belief you to make up your personal minds, and to make the choices which can be finest for you, your households and your communities.”
“We love America. And we make no apologies for saying so,” the fourth precept states. “Our foundational values of liberty, equality and the rule of legislation make us the final finest hope on Earth. We additionally imagine in Franklin’s well-known line about America as a republic — if we will preserve it. We goal to do our half each evening: A technique to consider our present is as a every day dialog about precisely the place we’re as a rustic and the place we’re going.”
When the brand new CBS Night Information kicks off on Monday, we promise to dwell by these 5 easy rules – from our very first present on the street, to our first broadcast on the brand new set in New York, and each one after that.
Be part of us January fifth at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS. pic.twitter.com/K3gNPnC6lx
— CBS Night Information (@CBSEveningNews) January 2, 2026
“We respect custom, however we additionally imagine sooner or later,” the checklist concludes. “We embrace the instruments that enable us to achieve you the place you’re. A few of you’ll watch this present on linear tv. Others will more and more watch it on social media. What we will assure is that the instruments will proceed to vary — however some issues by no means will. A type of issues is trustworthy journalism.”
This “CBS Night Information” mission assertion comes solely a day after Dokoupil outlined his imaginative and prescient for this system in a straight-to-social media video posted New 12 months’s Day on X. In it, Dokoupil started by telling viewers, “Folks don’t belief us like they used to. And it’s not simply us. It’s all of legacy media — and I get it.”
The brand new “CBS Night Information” host, who was promoted on Dec. 10 to fill the place beforehand held by the likes of Walter Cronkite, Norah O’Donnell and Dan Quite, went on to checklist quite a lot of tales he believes People assume the press didn’t cowl appropriately — or in any respect — over time. These embrace NAFTA, the Iraq Struggle, Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, Russiagate, COVID lockdowns, Hunter Biden’s laptop computer and “the president’s health for workplace.”
“We’ve taken under consideration the attitude of advocates and never the common American. Or we put an excessive amount of weight within the evaluation of teachers or elites, and never sufficient on you,” Dokoupil argued. “I do know this as a result of, at sure factors, I’ve been you. I’ve felt this manner too. I felt like what I used to be seeing and listening to on the information didn’t mirror what I used to be seeing and listening to in my very own life, and that essentially the most pressing questions merely weren’t being requested.”
“Immediately, and day-after-day you see me on this chair, you come first. Not advertisers, not politicians, not company pursuits. And sure, that does embrace the company homeowners of CBS. I report for you,” Dokoupil added, echoing the promise made by the primary of the 5 rules shared on-line at present.
“I turned a journalist to speak to individuals,” he concluded. “I really like speaking to individuals about what works on this nation, what doesn’t and never solely what ought to change, however the good concepts that ought to by no means change. I feel telling the reality is one in every of them. I’m Tony Dokoupil, the anchor of the CBS Night Information. Maintain me to it.”
Dokoupil’s feedback have been met with fierce opposition on-line Thursday and Friday. One X person declared that the anchor’s remarks have been proof that “CBS Information has fallen,” whereas one other jokingly requested, “Why is CBS posting Tony Dokoupil’s Fox Information audition tape?”
Suffice it to say, Dokoupil’s disparaging feedback concerning the present state of legacy media and his checklist of tales that the press has “missed” did nothing to assuage skeptical viewers’ fears. Those self same viewers will get a greater thought of Dokoupil’s imaginative and prescient, in addition to see this system’s new, 5 rules in motion, when “CBS Night Information” relaunches on Monday, Jan. 5 at 6:30 p.m. ET.
