Megyn Kelly does not think the CBS Evening News rebrand is going to work.
Late last week new host Tony Dokoupil outlined a new direction for CBS News, vowing to focus on the perspective of the average American after years of media putting too much weight on “advocates … academics or elites.” This came shortly after he was appointed the latest anchor by new CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. Kelly reacted days later confident the rebrand was “going to fail.”
“Good try. It’s going to fail. CBS Evening News will fail,” Kelly said. “CBS will not be turned around by Bari Weiss or anybody else. I’m sorry, but its days have passed. CBS was never for the past two decades, seriously in the running for dominance in the morning or the evening or any place else in the lineup.”
She added: “CBS News has not been relevant for forever, and it doesn’t matter who they put in the evening news chair or how late in the game they’ve realized that none of us trusts or, more importantly, needs them any more.”
In his straight-to-social media video explaining the new vision, Dokoupil pointed to a number of stories he felt traditional media missed including: NAFTA, the Iraq war, Russiagate, COVID lockdowns, Hunter Biden’s laptop and “the president’s fitness for office.”
“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,” he said. “And I know this because at certain points, I have been you. I have felt this way too. I felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn’t reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life, and that the most urgent questions simply weren’t being asked.”
Kelly continued to rail against Dokoupil – asking for examples of when he’d stood beside average Joes and not been mired in what she called “corporate bias” seeing as he spent the last nine years at CBS and was at NBC before that. She remained confident that those same people would see through what CBS Evening News was trying to do.
“Where was he standing up for people who were in the independent lane trying to tell the truth about media, about government, about the Biden administration,” she asked. “I don’t remember you, Tony, so I find this utter bulls–t condescension, and I do believe it will f–king fail, as all these networks are failing because the audience has caught on to their bulls–t.”
You can watch the full “The Megyn Kelly Show” segment in the video above.
