The controversy was about who replaced him. Rather was a controversial character at the time, not universally admired among the staff at CBS News.
Some preferred Roger Mudd to succeed Cronkite. The decision to choose Rather meant Mudd left CBS News.
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"Newsroom culture clash" at CBS News
- Thread starter Mark Roberts
- Start date
The controversy was about who replaced him. Rather was a controversial character at the time, not universally admired among the staff at CBS News.
Some preferred Roger Mudd to succeed Cronkite. The decision to choose Rather meant Mudd left CBS News.
His altercations with Nixon and Daddy Bush were par for Rather's course. It was a mistake to have him replace Uncle Walter.
Mudd was the "Anti-Rather." He was a good, competent newsman, but he was even more boring than Douglas Edwards or Robert Trout. I used to call Scott Pelley "Mudd 2.0."
Bob Schieffer was the guy who should have replaced Cronkite.
He replaced Rather, and filled the chair until replaced by Katie Couric. I believe he was the last to achieve ratings above 3rd place.
I chuckle when I read posts talking about the heritage of Murrow & Cronkite. That was a long time ago, and the heritage has been a whole lot weaker since then. Especially during the last 10 years.
Katie Couric was another huge mistake by CBS. Not only was she not a real news person on The Today Show, but she cemented her pro-Democratic politics at NBC during the Clinton years. I remember conservative talkers calling her "Hillary Clinton's Press Secretary," and that wasn't far off the mark. Nobody took her seriously as a legitimate news anchor.
Few remember Murrow today, since he died in 1965. One has to be at least 65 to remember Cronkite as a news anchor.
The heyday of CBS News is long over (as far as I'm concerned, it died when Cronkite retired), although I do like their streaming service. They have some good news people there, but it's not directly relevant to The CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes, or 48 Hours, other than the fact that they are carried there.
I agree about Murrow. I'm about to turn 75 and I barely remember seeing him from live TV, mostly from a CBS Reports he anchored, titled Harvest of Shame. (It was a documentary about how migrant field workers lived, and how they couldn't afford to buy the very food they themselves picked for us.)
I differ about Cronkite. It you were 10 or older when he retired, you're likely to have been in the room at least occasionally when Dad and/or Mom watched Cronkite's CBS Evening News. Many kids even younger can remember that same situation. Since Walter retired in 1981, that 10 year old is now 55-ish.
The right 55-year-old could probably pick Cronkite out of a lineup.
But once you subtract the people whose parents watched John Chancellor on NBC, Frank Reynolds, Harry Reasoner and Max Robinson on ABC---or no network news at all, which was 48 percent of U.S. households in 1980---to say nothing of people who grew up in a home where English was not the first language, or whose parents hadn't moved here yet...it's probably a minority of 55-year-olds.
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I really don't remember much about him, other than what my folks told me. They also had the album set "I Can Hear it Now" that came out shortly before his death, IIRC. From what I remember, a lot of it was discredited as fake a few years later.
I grew up with mandatory viewing of Huntley and Brinkley, due to my mother's absolute lifelong loyalty to NBC News, which she held until the day she died. I think it went back to at least World War II. I didn't see much of Cronkite until I had my own TV. I always preferred Cronkite to John Chancellor. I quit watching The CBS Evening News after he retired (I was 25, not 10) and was replaced by Dan Rather, whom I can't stand to this day.
We were an NBC News household too. After I moved out on my own, I generally watched NBC. I'd occasionally sample Cronkite, and I appreciated the CBS News organization and resources when it came to a big story, but I probably only watched an entire Walter Cronkite evening newscast a dozen times in my life. I was 24 when he retired.
When I started in TV news, it was at a CBS affiliate a few months after Rather started. I was a good soldier, but after three years, I started working for ABC affiliates, and I personally preferred Peter Jennings.
As for what people remember, about ten years ago, I was having a chat with someone who I'd just met---a woman then in her 50s, seemingly bright---who was fascinated to learn that I'd done TV news. She told me she watched Walter Cronkite every night and loved his signoff.
"And that's the way it is", I said.
"What is?", she replied.
"That's the way Walter signed off the news every night--by saying 'And that's the way it is'."
"Oh, no. His secretary said good night to him and he said good night back."
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the hell this woman, who would now be in her 60s and a prime candidate for remembering Walter Cronkite, was talking about.
Until that night, as I was about to doze off, it hit me:
This woman had confused the vanity slate at the end of Taxi with the end of the CBS Evening News.
They walk among us...
I was in college when he retired. I mainly remember Cronkite, and Eric Sevareid's editorials (though not the content), Marvin Kalb, Terry Drinkwarer, etc.
Tony’s first regularly-scheduled newscast was tonight. Variety has thoughts. Essential pull-quote:
“Dokoupil betrayed a Weissian willingness to bulldoze past that which might seem too untidy for whatever hypothetical viewer he and his editor have in mind.
Dokoupil blandly stated to the camera that a Russian-Chinese-Iranian base of influence in Venezuela will be destabilized by the U.S. military action, without citing any source or consulting any guest; a brief interview with a financial expert about how the events in South America will affect the price of gasoline never broached the notion of whether the U.S. extracting Venezuelan petroleum is legal.
Perhaps that might have constituted consulting advocates, and not the average American. But it would have been part of telling the whole story.”
variety.com
“Dokoupil betrayed a Weissian willingness to bulldoze past that which might seem too untidy for whatever hypothetical viewer he and his editor have in mind.
Dokoupil blandly stated to the camera that a Russian-Chinese-Iranian base of influence in Venezuela will be destabilized by the U.S. military action, without citing any source or consulting any guest; a brief interview with a financial expert about how the events in South America will affect the price of gasoline never broached the notion of whether the U.S. extracting Venezuelan petroleum is legal.
Perhaps that might have constituted consulting advocates, and not the average American. But it would have been part of telling the whole story.”
Tony Dokoupil’s ‘CBS Evening News’ Debut Is an Inauspicious Sign of Where CBS News Is Headed
Tony Dokoupil tripped up over transitions and bulldozed a health expert over vaccines
variety.com
I think his first one was actually Saturday night.Tony’s first regularly-scheduled newscast was tonight. Variety has thoughts. Essential pull-quote:
“Dokoupil betrayed a Weissian willingness to bulldoze past that which might seem too untidy for whatever hypothetical viewer he and his editor have in mind.
Dokoupil blandly stated to the camera that a Russian-Chinese-Iranian base of influence in Venezuela will be destabilized by the U.S. military action, without citing any source or consulting any guest; a brief interview with a financial expert about how the events in South America will affect the price of gasoline never broached the notion of whether the U.S. extracting Venezuelan petroleum is legal.
Perhaps that might have constituted consulting advocates, and not the average American. But it would have been part of telling the whole story.”
Tony Dokoupil’s ‘CBS Evening News’ Debut Is an Inauspicious Sign of Where CBS News Is Headed
Tony Dokoupil tripped up over transitions and bulldozed a health expert over vaccines
Read the first sentence I wrote again.
Has CBS Radio News been affected by these ideological changes yet? I have to admit I've rarely heard any of the radio news updates since WCBS 880 signed off.
Yes, you're right...misread it. I watched tonight's and Saturday's and didn't think he was too bad.Tony’s first regularly-scheduled newscast was tonight. Variety has thoughts. Essential pull-quote:
“Dokoupil betrayed a Weissian willingness to bulldoze past that which might seem too untidy for whatever hypothetical viewer he and his editor have in mind.
Dokoupil blandly stated to the camera that a Russian-Chinese-Iranian base of influence in Venezuela will be destabilized by the U.S. military action, without citing any source or consulting any guest; a brief interview with a financial expert about how the events in South America will affect the price of gasoline never broached the notion of whether the U.S. extracting Venezuelan petroleum is legal.
Perhaps that might have constituted consulting advocates, and not the average American. But it would have been part of telling the whole story.”
Tony Dokoupil’s ‘CBS Evening News’ Debut Is an Inauspicious Sign of Where CBS News Is Headed
Tony Dokoupil tripped up over transitions and bulldozed a health expert over vaccines
The thing about newscasts (from a guy who did them for 40+ years)...you're only as good as your last one. Fumbles, stumbles and tech mistakes are one thing. But commit journalistic malpractice, such as that described in the pull-quote, and that's fatal.
At this point, all they really offer is TOH 5-minute newscasts. They used to do longer form newscasts and even a weekly roundtable discussion program. Those were cancelled recently when they changed distributors from SkyView to Audacy's Infinity Networks.
Discussion on those changes here:
CBS World News Round-up Late Edition Ends
Not seeing an press on this, but CBS quietly discontinued this broadcast after 59 years on Friday Dec 19. Here's the last broadcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/dk/podcast/12-19-2025-world-news-roundup-late-edition/id172902754?i=1000742065701
radiodiscussions.com
BTW the current CBS News Radio affiliate in NYC is WBBR.
BTW, there was a mistake in the Evening News that was corrected in subsequent versions, including the YouTube version:
barrettmedia.com
This is not uncommon. The first airings of all evening news shows are often updated and corrected in later versions. It's also done with later feeds of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
CBS News Removes Tony Dokoupil Flub From CBS Evening News on YouTube
The moment from Dokoupil's first weeknight anchoring the CBS Evening News went viral on social media in the aftermath. Many took potshots at the new anchor.
barrettmedia.com
This is not uncommon. The first airings of all evening news shows are often updated and corrected in later versions. It's also done with later feeds of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
BTW, there was a mistake in the Evening News that was corrected in subsequent versions, including the YouTube version:
CBS News Removes Tony Dokoupil Flub From CBS Evening News on YouTube
The moment from Dokoupil's first weeknight anchoring the CBS Evening News went viral on social media in the aftermath. Many took potshots at the new anchor.
This is not uncommon. The first airings of all evening news shows are often updated and corrected in later versions. It's also done with later feeds of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
BTW, there was a mistake in the Evening News that was corrected in subsequent versions, including the YouTube version:
CBS News Removes Tony Dokoupil Flub From CBS Evening News on YouTube
The moment from Dokoupil's first weeknight anchoring the CBS Evening News went viral on social media in the aftermath. Many took potshots at the new anchor.
This is not uncommon. The first airings of all evening news shows are often updated and corrected in later versions. It's also done with later feeds of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
It's common practice for any show that has a rollover for later time zones or for digital posting. A good friend of mine is the editor for weekend Good Morning America, which has an odd workflow where it's only live to a handful of markets (Bangor, DC and I think one or two in Florida) and then re-rolls an hour later for most of the Eastern/Central timezones with a bunch of tweaks to fix errors and insert updates if there's breaking news.
Because I'm on the West Coast, it's rare that I hear the first feed of those programs or Weekend Edition. But when I do, it can be shocking to hear the flubs that go out but get "disappeared" by the subsequent feeds. I actually wish that they'd leave many of them in, so later listeners can get reminded that the programs are produced and hosted by fallible human beings.BTW, there was a mistake in the Evening News that was corrected in subsequent versions, including the YouTube version:
CBS News Removes Tony Dokoupil Flub From CBS Evening News on YouTube
The moment from Dokoupil's first weeknight anchoring the CBS Evening News went viral on social media in the aftermath. Many took potshots at the new anchor.
This is not uncommon. The first airings of all evening news shows are often updated and corrected in later versions. It's also done with later feeds of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
They had so many negative news pieces about Democrats lined up that they didn't know which one to run first.