What To Know
- Tony Dokoupil and CBS News were criticized for showing footage of Kanye West during a report about Sean “Diddy” Combs.
- The network corrected the error for later broadcasts and digital platforms.
- CBS News also faced criticism over the handling of weather-related disruptions during coverage of the Great American State Fair.
Tony Dokoupil and the CBS News team have been slammed for mixing up Kanye West and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
According to the New York Post, the embarrassing on-air gaffe occurred during Friday’s (July 3) East Coast broadcast of CBS Evening News as Dokoupil reported that President Donald Trump was considering a pardon for Combs, who was found guilty on two counts of transportation for prostitution. The report included a video of West, who had attended Combs’ trial last year.
The outlet reports that CBS News fixed the mistake for its West Coast broadcast and on its CBS digital platforms, but not before the Post grabbed a screenshot of the error, which you can see here.
A source told the publication that the “disastrous” mistake was an example of how short-staffed the show is. “They are drinking from a fire hose,” the source said. “This sort of thing should not happen. Where is the quality control?”
However, a network insider refuted those claims, saying it was a “one-off error” that had “nothing to do with short staffing.”
The errors didn’t stop there, though, as the network also hit a snag during its coverage of Trump’s Great American State Fair celebrations after the president issued an evacuation order for the National Mall due to incoming thunderstorms.
Dokoupil and his co-host, Nischelle Turner, were “holed up nearby as the storm swept through,” the Post reported, with them waiting for almost an hour for CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and network President Tom Cibrowski to decide what to do.
The source called it “amateur hour,” adding, “Tony and Nischelle waited one hour in the rain for Bari or Tom to tell them to go to the studio.”
Another network source claimed that Dokoupil and Turner weren’t waiting for a directive from higher-ups but “simply waiting in the case that Secret Service would let them return to the Mall.”
A CBS News spokesperson also dismissed the idea that the broadcast was a disaster, stating, “This is nonsense. Despite the weather evacuation, our exceptional team never missed a step. We seamlessly activated our pre-planned weather contingencies to deliver great coverage for our audience.”
CBS Evening News, Weeknights, 6:30/5:30c, CBS