The CBS Evening News’ Inane ‘5 Simple Values’; the EPA Will Start Valuing Costs to Industry, but Not Human Lives–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Jan. 12, 2026

Indy Digest: Jan. 12, 2026

Today and Thursday (barring anything major and/or unforeseen, both of which are possibilities given the world in which we find ourselves), I’m going to dedicate the Indy Digest intros to pompous news-media announcements!

Today’s subject: The CBS Evening News, which on Jan. 2 spewed forth pablum headlined “Our Promise to You: Once a 38-page handbook. Now 5 simple values” on social media, before Tony Dokoupil started his tenure as anchor. Those five values:

1. We work for you. That means you come first. Not advertisers. Not politicians. Not corporate interests, including the corporate owners of CBS.

OK. Other than the second redundant “corporate,” this is fine. Next up …

2. We report on the world as it is. We’ll be honest and direct with you. That means no weasel words or padded landings. We’ll tell you what you know, when we know it. We’ll update our reporting when we uncover new facts. And we’ll admit when we get it wrong.

Now this is where things start to go off the rails, and the pomposity starts to kick in. WTF is a weasel word? A padded landing?! We’re talking about the CBS Evening News here, not gymnastics practice. Moving on …

3. We respect you. We believe that our fellow Americans are smart and discerning. It’s our job to present you with the fullest picture—and the strongest voices on all sides of an issue. We trust you to make up your own minds, and to make the decisions that are best for you, your families and your communities.

This is the point where things start moving from insipid to concerning. Anytime you see a news outlet using phrases like “the strongest voices on all sides of an issue,” you should instantly call “bullshit”!

To explain why, I recommend this piece headlined “‘Suicide for democracy.’ What is ‘bothsidesism’—and how is it different from journalistic objectivity?” by Denis Muller, the senior research fellow for the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne, writing for The Conversation. A snippet from the piece:

So it was that for decades the tobacco industry was able to assert—in the face of strong medical evidence—that the link between smoking and cancer was not conclusively proved.

The same tactic is now being used by climate-change deniers, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real and is caused by human activity.

In cases like this, bothsidesism does immense damage to democratic discourse: it creates a false equivalence between two sides, where the weight of evidence is clearly on one side and not the other.

Moving on to No. 4:

4. We love America. And we make no apologies for saying so. Our foundational values of liberty, equality and the rule of law make us the last best hope on Earth. We also believe in Franklin’s famous line about America as a republic—if we can keep it. We aim to do our part every night: One way to think about our show is as a daily conversation about exactly where we are as a country and where we are going.

There is a WHOLE LOT about this section that is disconcerting. For one thing: Who was asked to apologize for saying they love America?

There’s an implication here that love equates to praise—and the United States has certainly done a lot of things in its history that are far from praiseworthy. Does this pronunciation mean that CBS News will pull its punches and decline to report critically on the federal government—y’know, since we’re “the last best hope on Earth”?

This reeks of jingoism. Yikes.

5. We respect tradition, but we also believe in the future. We embrace tools that allow us to reach you where you are. Some of you will watch this show on linear television. Others will increasingly watch it on social media. What we can guarantee is that the tools will continue to change—but some things never will. One of those things is honest journalism.

OK, this one’s harmless … meaningless, but harmless. It seems like someone wrote this dreck in an effort to impress Bari Weiss—and, alarmingly, succeeded.

So now that Weiss’ new CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil has been on the air for a week, how’s it going so far? Well, to be overly generous … best-case, it’s been a mixed bag.

In addition to CBS News being the target of one of Golden Globes host Nikki Glaser’s harshest jokes last night (“and the award for most editing goes to CBS News … America’s newest place to see BS news,” she said), Dokoupil received ample criticism for softball, overly deferential segments on Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth—but he showed hints of a spine on Wednesday during an interview with Tom Homan regarding the killing of Renee Good. (The Guardian did a fine recap on the first week which you can read here.)

I hope Dokoupil finds his way and does a good job in the chair once occupied by Walker Cronkite. I really do. But given his boss’ history of bending over backward to comfort the comfortable, and that idiotic “5 simple values” crap, I am 180 degrees from optimistic.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• The president’s alarming decision to launch a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has even some normally acquiescent Republicans speaking out. The Hill reports: “Senate Republicans are rushing to defend Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell from a Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal investigation that Powell says is politically motivated and aimed at undercutting the Fed’s independence. GOP lawmakers are challenging the Trump administration’s investigation of Powell a week after five Republican senators voted to advance a war powers resolution to bar Trump from taking military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization. The loudest warning shot against the White House came from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, who accused Trump’s advisers of deliberately trying to undercut the Fed’s independence and threatened to block the president’s nominees to the Fed until the investigation is ‘fully resolved.’ He said the criminal probe into Powell’s testimony before Congress last year over the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters in Washington raises questions about the ‘independence and credibility of the Department of Justice.’ It was a notable rebuke from a swing-state senator who voted to confirm both Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel early last year.”

• The New York Times published a piece today headlined “E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution“—which is shocking enough, but the sub-headline REALLY drives home how truly terrifying this all is: “In a reversal, the agency plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.” Read that again. Wow. Details: “Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing two of the most widespread deadly air pollutants, fine particulate matter and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times. It’s a seismic shift that runs counter to the E.P.A.’s mission statement, which says the agency’s core responsibility is to protect human health and the environment, environmental law experts said. The change could make it easier to repeal limits on these pollutants from coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities across the country, the emails and documents show. That would most likely lower costs for companies while resulting in dirtier air.“

• The president is again threatening to revoke immigrant Americans’ citizenship. Time magazine says: “Trump has paid particular focus to Minnesota, on account of the widespread investigations regarding fraudulent schemes targeting government-funded programs within the state. The President has used the scandal to target Minnesota’s Somali community and has accused them of ‘destroying’ the state, on account of some people of Somali descent being found guilty of involvement with the schemes. He has seemingly taken to blaming the community as a whole rather than the individuals involved. Referencing members of the Somali community, Trump confirmed this week that his Administration is looking into stripping some Americans of their naturalized state. ‘I would do it in a heartbeat if they were dishonest,’ Trump told the New York Times in an interview conducted Wednesday night. ‘I think that many of the people that came in from Somalia, they hate our country.’ Although the Trump Administration is actively looking into the criteria for taking away citizenship, the President did not specify the exact foreign-born groups that would be targeted. Instead, he said: ‘If they deserve to be stripped, I would, yes.’ Trump also did not specify what exactly would constitute one to ‘deserve’ the denaturalization.”

• Wired magazine reports that a proposal for California to enact a one-time wealth tax on billionaires has some of them worried: The lede: “Did California lose Larry Page? The Google and Alphabet cofounder, who left day-to-day operations in 2019, has seen his net worth soar in the years since—from around $50 billion at the time of his departure to somewhere approximating $260 billion today. (Leaving his job clearly didn’t hurt his wallet.) Last year, a proposed ballot initiative in California threatened billionaires like Page with a one-time 5 percent wealth tax—prompting some of them to consider leaving the state before the end of the year, when the tax, if passed, would retroactively kick in. Page seems to have been one of those defectors; The Wall Street Journal reported that he recently spent more than $170 million on two homes in Miami. The article also indicated his cofounder Sergey Brin also might become a Florida man. The Google guys, formerly California icons, are only two of approximately 250 billionaires subject to the plan. It’s not certain whether many of them have departed for Florida, Texas, New Zealand, or a space station. But it is clear that a lot of vocal billionaires and other super rich people are publicly losing their minds about the proposal, which will appear on the November ballot if it garners around 875,000 signatures.”

• A new paper shows that after people stop using popular weight-loss drugs, the pounds usually come back. The Washington Post says: “People who stop taking GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy for weight loss are projected to regain their shed pounds within about 1 1/2 years, a review of existing research has found. The paper also found that former users of a wider list of weight-loss drugs regain weight four times more quickly than those who had used behavioral techniques like dieting or exercise. For sustained health benefits after coming off the drugs, scientists say, it is necessary to make lasting changes to your diet and exercise regime. Millions of Americans use the drugs, which work with remarkable effectiveness by cutting cravings for food, slowing digestion and keeping you feeling full for longer. But so far, there has been comparatively less research on what happens when users stop taking the drugs.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … tater tots! NBC Chicago reports: “More than 38,000 cases of popular brand tater tots were recalled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration due to ‘clear hard plastic fragments.’ The tots were sold in 26 states, including (California) … Idaho-based McCain Foods USA, Inc. recalled both Ore-Ida and Sysco brand tater tots. 21,256 cases of Ore-Ida tater tots and 17,597 cases of the Sysco brand tater tots were recalled.”

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