Adam Carolla unloaded on Tony Dokoupil after a CBS Evening News promo tried to sell a “listening tour” and a promise to fix the network’s credibility problem. Carolla didn’t mince words, calling the clip a PR stunt and accusing the mainstream press of not merely missing stories but lying about them. This was not gentle criticism — it was a scorched-earth demand for accountability from a media class that has spent years insulating itself from consequence.
On his podcast Carolla paused the promo line by line and called out specific failures: the Hunter Biden laptop coverage, the papering-over of questions about President Biden’s cognitive fitness, and the pandemic-era narratives that citizens were told to accept without question. He said bluntly, “You didn’t miss the story, you lied about the story,” and insisted that reporters stop treating advocacy talking points as reporting. That kind of bluntness is rare in mainstream circles and precisely why the public’s trust has collapsed.
Carolla also mocked the idea that newsrooms should consult “the average American” rather than doing the basic work of journalism — digging into documents, crunching numbers, and demanding answers. He revealed that Bari Weiss had circulated the promo to him, and he warned that words without mea culpas will ring hollow. For conservatives who have watched a media cart blanche for years, Carolla’s rant read like a long-overdue public scolding of an industry that still refuses to own its political and editorial choices.
Megyn Kelly weighed in with skepticism about whether CBS can be rescued by a new anchor or a ten-city PR tour, arguing that legacy evening news has been dying for a long time. Kelly has been public about the network’s past failures and doubts that a glossy rebrand can paper over systemic bias and editorial cover-ups. Her take underlines a simple point: cosmetic changes and feel-good promises won’t restore credibility unless executives and anchors admit what went wrong and make structural changes.
The bigger lesson here is not about personalities but about a failing institution that still thinks corporate spin can repair trust. When a comedian and podcaster can rip open a network’s PR and demand a mea culpa, it shows how low the bar for accountability actually is. The public deserves transparent journalism — not op-eds disguised as news, not staged listening tours, and certainly not sanctimonious lectures from the same people who have been excused for years.
If CBS or any other major outlet truly wants to rebuild credibility, it will have to start by naming specific wrongs, correcting them publicly, and letting independent editors and reporters do real investigative work without the filter of corporate ideology. Carolla’s fury and Kelly’s skepticism are symptoms of a larger hunger for honest reporting, plain and simple. Until that hunger is met with real institutional humility and reform, viewers will keep treating network promises as PR — and rightfully so.
