February 12, 2026

CBS EVENING NEWS PRODUCER BAILS ON SHOW:

A CBS Evening News producer has complained that journalists are being forced to “self-censor or avoid challenging narratives” under the network’s new Trump-friendly management.

The attack came in a fiery farewell note to colleagues from producer Alicia Hastey explaining her decision to take a buyout and leave the program. The letter was shared on X by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin.

Hastey does not mention by name either Bari Weiss, the MAGA-curious TV novice now running CBS News, or Tony Dokoupil, the much-criticized Evening News host Weiss installed.

Hastey does namecheck and quote the late Walter Cronkite, the legendary CBS News anchor with whom the lightweight Dokoupil has been unfavorably compared:

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Walter Cronkite once said in response to critics: “If that is what makes us liberals, so be it, just as long as in reporting the news we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism — that news reports must be fair, accurate and unbiased.”

Cronkite’s idea is one of the best I’ve encountered. He understood that labels are inevitable, but standards are what matter. What defines journalism is not what critics call it, but whether it remains faithful to those principles.

The ghost of Barry Goldwater must be roaring with laughter right now.

Incidentally, the Daily Beast article linked above is headlined, “MAGA-Coded Anchor’s Show Producer Rips CBS in Fiery Farewell,” which is apparently something of a leitmotif at the leftist-coded Website:

Curiously, because Tony Dokoupil dared to actually do on-air journalism in the fall of 2024, and ask a few tough questions to leftist icon Ta-Nehisi Coates (for which he has forced to endure a Maoist struggle session under CBS News’ former management), he’s apparently “MAGA-coded,” despite being married to Katy Tur, who has not exactly been “MAGA-coded” in much of her coverage of Trump: Watch Katy Tur of NBC News Wonder If Trump Will Become Like Putin and Start Killing Journalists.

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Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll