NEW: Star CBS Information Host Abruptly Quits Community
Veteran journalist John Dickerson is out at CBS — and he’s not saying why.
The 57-year-old Evening News anchor stunned the network Monday by announcing on Instagram that he’s leaving at year’s end — just nine months after taking over the struggling broadcast with co-host Maurice DuBois.
“Local news: At the end of this year, I will leave CBS, sixteen years after I sat in as Face the Nation anchor for the first time,” Dickerson wrote. “I am extremely grateful for all that CBS gave me — the work, the audience’s attention and the honor of being a part of the network’s history — and I am grateful for my dear colleagues who’ve made me a better journalist and a better human. I will miss you.”
He didn’t mention a new job or a reason for the sudden exit.
Dickerson joined CBS News in 2009 and was handed the network’s most high-profile gig earlier this year. The move to pair him with DuBois after booting Norah O’Donnell was billed as a bold experiment — but the ratings told a different story. Viewership tanked, with the Evening News drawing just 3.6 million nightly viewers —a 14% drop from last year.
It’s unclear whether Dickerson jumped or was pushed. His final broadcast will air in December.
The shake-up comes just weeks after CBS installed former New York Times writer Bari Weiss as its new editor-in-chief — a move that sent shockwaves through the industry. Weiss, known for blasting “woke” culture and founding The Free Press, was brought in by new network owner David Ellison to rein in CBS’s leftward drift and rebuild its credibility.
Weiss, 41, has been given sweeping authority to reshape the newsroom and isn’t shy about it. Insiders say she’s already met with O’Donnell and has her eye on Fox News anchor Bret Baier for a top on-air role. (Baier’s contract with Fox runs through 2028.)
CBS News president Tom Cibrowski tried to downplay the turmoil, calling Dickerson “the very best in journalism” and promising to honor his work. But behind the scenes, nerves are frayed.
Sources say Gayle King could be next on the chopping block as Weiss and Ellison look to overhaul the “Tiffany Network,” which has bled viewers to Fox and digital outlets for years.
Dickerson, who lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, PR executive Anne Dickerson, and their two children, made his name as a sharp political interviewer — so much so that The Washington Post once dubbed his trademark questioning style “Dickersonian.”
Broadcasting runs in the family: his late mother, Nancy Dickerson, broke barriers as CBS News’s first female correspondent in 1960 after joining the network in 1954. She died of a stroke in 1997 at age 70.
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