McMahon on Wire

Wendy McMahon
McMahon is obviously grappling with a Herculean challenge, trying to appease bitterly divided constituencies in a polarized, self-important legacy newsroom—and with the added pressure of an outspoken and opinionated outgoing owner. Photo: Frazer Harrison/Variety/Getty Images
Dylan Byers
October 17, 2024

On Monday evening, outgoing Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone and Tony Dokoupil, the CBS Mornings co-host at the center of the network’s recent Israel-Palestine P.R. clusterfuck, met for dinner in Manhattan to dish on the recent developments emanating from the newsroom. The previous week, of course, Dokoupil had been effectively humiliated by his bosses, CBS News C.E.O. Wendy McMahon and her deputy Adrienne Roark, who had inelegantly shamed him over his tone in the now-infamous Ta-Nehisi Coates interview. In response, Shari publicly shamed them by calling the decision a “mistake,” adding, “I think we all agree that this was not handled correctly.” (Paramount Global’s interim co-C.E.O. George Cheeks delicately attempted to shame them all in return, by acknowledging what all sentient people already know: This wasn’t the biggest deal in the world, after all.)