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Tony Dokoupil last week started his new job as CBS Evening News anchor with a message to viewers that his colleagues had not been doing the news particularly well.

I would not have recommended that.

Dokoupil, in a video message posted Jan. 1 on the CBS News site, raised the thorny issue of viewer trust: “A lot has changed since the first person sat in the ‘Evening News’ chair,” he said. “For me, the biggest difference is this: people don’t trust us like they used to. And it’s not just us. It’s all legacy media.”

Well, Tony, it’s most public institutions, but … whatever.

Dokoupil then pointed his finger at the media itself for the decline in trust:

The point is that on too many stories the press missed the story. Because we’ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.

I know this because, at certain points, I have been you. I have felt that way too. I have felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn’t reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life. And that the most urgent questions simply weren’t being asked.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the CBS News lunchroom after that was posted.

Unsurprisingly, large parts of the journalism and political world had thoughts.

Former New York Times editor Lydia Polgren commented: “Advocates for whom? Experts on what, and with what qualifications? Who counts as an ‘average American’? Good journalism is adding more sources, not subtracting them, and being transparent about why the audience should believe them.”

“The audience is the average American but the validator of accuracy is not the audience,” wrote Nicholas Riccardi, a national political reporter for The Associated Press.

Don Dahler, a former CBS News corresponded, commented, “This sounds like it was written by Bari Weiss.” Dokoupil responded, “nope, I wrote it. I spent the first half of my career as a print journalist. If the Internet had never been invented, I probably still would be a print journalist. Writing is my first form.”

“You wouldn’t want ‘academics and elites’ who have actually studied a subject to outweigh the off-the-cuff opinions of village idiots,” Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote. “This is how we’re seeing the resurgence of measles and the widespread belief in almost non-existent vote fraud. Cronkite would be so very proud of you.”

A social media post about the new anchor also invoked former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, prompting this response from Dokoupil: “I can promise you we’ll be more accountable and more transparent than Cronkite or any one else of his era.”

I would not have recommended that, either.

Bill Carter, the longtime media industry reporter who worked at the New York Times, called Dokoupil’s comments “a truly foolish thing to say.”

“You just got this job, you did a bit where nobody knew your name, and you’re dissing Cronkite? What’s next? Trump is more transparent than Lincoln?” Carter wrote.

“I knew Walter Cronkite. I was his producer,” said Tom Bettag, a University of Maryland journalism professor and longtime news executive. “Walter Cronkite would have never said something so self-serving.”

Dokoupil and new news boss Bari Weiss had planned a cross-country extravaganza, a “Live from America” tour, complete with private jet and armed guards. But the U.S. attack on Venezuela put Dokoupil in the anchor’s chair two days early.

“I think that is actually a better launch than anything else we could have come up with,” Dokoupil said. “The road sometimes rises to meet you, and after all, we cover the news, and - this was news.”

But the CBS version of the news with Dokoupil at the helm didn’t impress a lot of observers, either.

As Variety put it, “Tony Dokoupil’s debut as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News” came widely heralded - by Tony Dokoupil.”

Monday’s broadcast was replete with technical errors. Tuesday’s broadcast prompted this from CNN’s Brian Stelter:

Some high-profile CBS News staffers were aghast last night when Dokoupil’s brief mention of the Jan. 6 anniversary was a both-sides mess. He said, “President Trump today accused Democrats of failing to prevent the attack on the Capitol while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the president of ‘whitewashing’ it.”

Very Fox-y, right? The clip ricocheted around social media and was ridiculed by media types. As Status reported last night, the rebooted newscast is becoming “a source of embarrassment and growing alarm inside the network’s newsroom.”

Perhaps this is all part of the Bari Weiss plan. “Trump is getting exactly what his rich buddy paid for,” The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell remarked.

Dokoupil’s “It’s not you, it’s me” video was not a one-off. CBS News also posted some new “values”:

• We work for you.
• We report on the world as it is.
• We respect you.
• We love America.
• We respect tradition, but we also believe in the future.

What to make of this?

They’ll report on the world “as it is”? What does that look like?

They love America? What does a story written by someone who “loves America” look like? Will we be able to spot it?

They respect me? The world’s oldest dating line.

They believe in the future? Excellent, because, as the saying goes, that’s where we all have to live.

Let’s be clear: Not a day goes by that I don’t complain about the media. But those complaints are specific, grounded in an understanding of the structure and dynamics of the news business and the culture of newsrooms  —  which, in my long experience, are not at all ideological.

In contrast, Dokoupil’s video message and the new CBS News “values” echo Bari Weiss’s familiar criticism of mainstream media - long on ideological rhetoric and short on useful corrective guidance. From Weiss, who has never run a television newsroom.

Her criticism is the latest version of talking points that go back more than 50 years to Vice President Spiro Agnew, and his talk of “this little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every Presidential address, but, more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting, and interpreting the great issues in our nation.” At a time when 70 percent of the country trusted the media, it was the start of a drumbeat to erode the credibility of the mainstream press.

Dokoupil’s message and the “values” statement cap that effort. Once the claims of outside critics, now the call is coming from inside the building. It’s a great moment for that long effort, and Weiss is the doyenne of that moment.