CBS News Prez Ordered Morning Show to Ignore Colbert’s Finale Because of Late Show’s ‘Unprofessional’ Shot at Tony Dokoupil: Report

(Photos: CBS)

Stephen Colbert got plenty of farewell salutes from the mainstream press last week, but one exception was glaring.

CBS Mornings did not mention Colbert’s final Late Show once last Friday, one day after the host signed off from the network with a star-studded swan song.

“And that wasn’t an oversight,” Puck founder Matthew Belloni wrote on Tuesday, after noting there were “no highlights” and “not a single mention of a pretty major event on its own network.”

Why?

“I’m told the ghosting was a specific directive from CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, who hated Colbert’s recent bit mocking their failure to secure a China visa for anchor Tony Dokoupil, Belloni wrote. “Colbert ‘kicked colleagues when they were down,’ one source at CBS News told me today. ‘It was unprofessional and unprovoked.'”

The segment that angered Cibrowski mocked Dokoupil for reporting from “The Wrong China” — he was forced to broadcast from Taiwan during President Donald Trump’s China trip because of the botched visa — and showed a phony version of the anchor with his head stuck inside a pumpkin.

It then showed an old lady portraying Bari Weiss entering the shot and smacking him on the head with a mallet… in an effort to help him out, apparently. The Colbert crowd seemed to find it fairly funny.

But the CBS News bosses didn’t, especially since the news unit had supported Colbert following his cancellation and in his battle with the FCC earlier this year, Belloni reported.

“It wasn’t a complete gag order, though: Anchor Gayle King posted a gushing farewell to Colbert on Instagram and hit the finale afterparty on Thursday night,” he added.

In related news, veteran TV reporter Bill Carter said CBS had “capitulated” to Trump by booting Colbert during an interview on MS NOW last weekend.

“It’s not a good development for the country, obviously,” the ex-New York Times reporter said about Colbert’s exit.

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