Long Island native Maurice DuBois out as 'CBS Evening News' co-anchor

Maurice DuBois, the Port Jefferson native who rose through CBS to become the first Black anchor of the CBS News weeknight flagship broadcast, announced his departure from the program Thursday. His last day will be Dec. 18.

In a late-morning Instagram post, DuBois, 60, wrote, "Moving On: December 18th is the day of my last broadcast at CBS News. It has been the Honor of a Lifetime. 21 years altogether, including my time at WCBS-TV in New York City. What a privilege! To be welcomed into your homes night after night, delivering the news / meeting extraordinary people and telling their stories. I’ll leave filled with gratitude, cherished relationships and amazing memories. A couple weeks to go; until then, see you on The CBS Evening News every night at 6:30."

DuBois' co-host on the program, John Dickerson, had earlier announced his own departure. He's leaving the show at the end of December.

In an interview with Newsday in November 2024, a couple months before he began the job, DuBois said: "I'm excited, I'm over the moon. I see challenges ahead [but] I'll just embrace the whole thing. It's an incredible moment and I'm ready to go."

Those challenges were indeed steep: Years in third place, behind dominant news broadcasts of ABC and NBC, while a wrenching corporate takeover effort by Skydance to absorb CBS parent Paramount was then underway.

Nevertheless, the appointment of DuBois — who had long been an anchor at WCBS/2 — was historic. Over its 77-year history, there had been just eight anchors of the weeknight edition of the "CBS Evening News," none of them Black. DuBois, who became the first, said at the time, "I'm the beneficiary of a lot of people's efforts and labors, but a lot of people should have had a shot before." Ed Bradley headed the Sunday edition of "Evening News" from 1976 to 1981.

DuBois said he "met Ed Bradley a few times and chatted with him a little bit. I wanted to be Ed Bradley. I wanted to be Ted Koppel. I wanted to be Bryant Gumbel. I wanted to be those people. Those were among my idols."

"Maurice has long represented what we do best at CBS News and Stations," Tom Cibrowski, president/executive editor of CBS News, said in a statement. "For more than two decades, he has delivered the day's biggest stories from our studios in New York and in the field. Later this month, Maurice will leave the network. We are grateful for his significant contributions, at both CBS News New York and the CBS Evening News. Maurice is deeply valued and respected as a journalist by all of us and we wish him much success. It is my hope that we can work together again. We will have more details on the next chapter of CBS Evening News in the near future."