The “CBS Evening News” entered a new phase on Monday.
Anchor Norah O’Donnell signed off last Thursday for the final time. After more than five years and nearly 1,300 newscasts, O’Donnell told viewers, “This has been the honor of a lifetime, to anchor this legacy broadcast.”
That legacy broadcast is now moving in a different direction. O’Donnell, by her choice, announced last summer that she would leave the anchor desk shortly after the election. She is moving on to do big investigations and interviews for various CBS News properties, such as “60 Minutes” and the “Evening News.”
The new “CBS Evening News” now has a different look with co-anchors taking O’Donnell’s place. That includes John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, along with “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, who will offer perspective and news about Washington and politics.
Dickerson told People’s Kyler Alvord, “People have the news all day in their pockets, and we’re not trying to compete with that. What we can share is the perspective that comes from the deep reporting that our correspondents do. … That’s a CBS News strength — our experienced correspondents and the people working on the show who have spent their lives trying to figure out how to make a complicated world understandable.”
DuBois told Alvord, “John and I will debrief our correspondents each night. You’ll get context and insight. It will feel like people you know describing incredible things that they just witnessed. I’m excited to give our viewers nuggets of info that they won’t get anywhere else.”
The newscast will also include reports from chief weathercaster Lonnie Quinn. That feels like a smart move, with the weather often being a top national story and drawing high interest from audiences.
On Monday, the newscast didn’t start with a long tease of all the stories coming up in the half-hour. Instead, the new format immediately jumped right in with an opening story: China’s artificial intelligence company, DeepSeek. Both DuBois and Dickerson, in the New York studio, handled the story before introducing Brennan from Washington. Brennan then gave perspective on DeepSeek, taking questions from DuBois and Dickerson, while telling viewers what it meant. In other words, more perspective along with the details of the story.
At the end of the first block, the newscast had something called “RoundUp,” which had quick summaries such as the mudslides in California, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent arrests, a memorial in Poland commemorating the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz being liberated, and then President Donald Trump’s meeting with GOP leaders. The block ended with teases to more stories that the newscast would cover later in the half hour.
Another wrinkle: During the first commercial break, the newscast had a “HEADLINES” section, almost like the kind of ticker you see on the bottom of, say, ESPN. It was exactly what the chyron suggests — just the headlines of stories, such as:
- DOJ Fires Officials on Jack Smith’s Team.
- Costco Shareholders Reject Anti-DEI measure.
- Record Cruise Ship Travel Predicted for 3rd Year.
- Dozens of Tuberculosis Cases in Kansas City.
- Small Earthquake rattles New England Coast.
Those were just a handful of many headlines.
And that was the gist of the first two blocks: stories with a little extra perspective added from the correspondents covering them. The third segment was called “Eye on America,” which was a deep dive into California families that are dealing with being underinsured following the wildfires.
The final segment was more inspirational: recognizing first responders.
In the end, the newscast didn’t try to cover everything, but of the stories it did cover, it covered extensively. CBS isn’t reinventing the wheel, but there is no question that it had a different look and feel, and there is also no question that it was interesting.
On one hand, the move to co-anchors and reimagining the newscast is a bit risky because it’s not what habit-watching TV news viewers are used to. On the other hand, the “CBS Evening News” has trailed both ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “Nightly News” for several years.
Variety’s Brian Steinberg wrote, “O’Donnell didn’t change that, but give her this: The show last week won an average of 5.037 million viewers — a little higher than the program’s norm — amid big changes in the nation. And she’s never had her journalism questioned or a story that generated criticism of being unfair or inaccurate — despite several tough pieces that investigated sexual assault in the military. She also secured an interview with Pope Francis, not the easiest ‘get’ in the business.”
Still, it’s a bit of a risk for both the CBS “Evening News” and O’Donnell, who gives up one of the most coveted jobs in broadcast journalism.
Steinberg added, “The new format will help accomplish a goal touted for months by senior CBS and Paramount Global executives: bringing together the news teams of CBS News and the CBS local stations. The maneuver takes place as Paramount is under extreme pressure to cut millions of dollars from its operating costs. More are expected to take place once the company is acquired by Skydance Media, expected, at present, at some point later this year. Viewers of the new ‘Evening News’ probably won’t see Dickerson and DuBois out in the field all that much, a duty that will increasingly be handled by a correspondent who covers the area in which an important news story breaks.”
