A high-stakes CBS Evening News broadcast from Taiwan unraveled in real time on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, when the program’s cameraman collapsed on set, leaving anchor Tony Dokoupil scrambling on live television as he tried to make sense of the crisis unfolding just feet away.
Dokoupil, 45, had been broadcasting from Taipei — a fallback location chosen after he reportedly failed to secure a visa for the People’s Republic of China — when a loud thud was heard off-camera during the show’s closing segment. The veteran journalist froze mid-sentence, abandoned his scripted introduction of the summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and asked the question viewers across America heard in real time: “Is he OK?”
The camera shook violently. The feed cut abruptly to B-roll footage of Chinese landscapes. Off-screen, muffled voices could be heard as Dokoupil composed himself and addressed the audience. “We’re going to take a quick break. We have a medical emergency here,” he said, adding that the team was “calling a doctor.” The broadcast then handed off to CBS correspondent John Dickerson in New York, who signed off for the night.
A Last-Minute Deployment From Tokyo
The cameraman, identified as Randy Schmidt, had been dispatched to Taiwan on extraordinarily short notice, sources told the New York Post. A longtime fixture of CBS News’ now-shuttered Tokyo bureau, Schmidt was informed at 7 a.m. Wednesday Tokyo time that he would need to fly to Taipei to support Dokoupil’s coverage of the Trump-Xi summit.
He boarded a 2 p.m. flight, landed in Taiwan at 5:05 p.m. local time, and arrived at his hotel around 7 p.m. Tokyo sits just one hour ahead of Taipei, but Taiwan is 12 hours ahead of New York City. Dokoupil’s broadcast aired at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time — which translated to 6:30 a.m. Taiwan time on Thursday morning.
One critic alleged Schmidt had worked a punishing 24-hour shift before collapsing, but a CBS News source pushed back, saying the cameraman “definitely had downtime” and rested overnight before the broadcast. According to the network source, a local producer and fixer was physically with Schmidt from the start, additional crew members arrived before airtime, and Schmidt remained in constant contact with CBS operations staff in London throughout the setup.
Schmidt brought his own broadcast equipment from Tokyo — standard practice for freelancers, who typically travel with eight to 10 equipment cases. Schmidt traveled lighter with three gear cases and two carry-on bags, and was paid extra because CBS used his rig. A driver hired by the network helped haul the equipment from the airport.
Cascade of Technical Failures
The collapse capped a broadcast that had been plagued by problems from the outset. Dokoupil struggled visibly with his earpiece throughout the program. When CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, reporting from Beijing, tried to toss the broadcast back to Dokoupil with a simple “Tony,” the feed cut to a confused anchor clutching his earpiece. He remained silent for roughly eight seconds before recovering, thanking Jiang and moving on. A similarly awkward pause unfolded after foreign correspondent Anna Coren wrapped her segment.
An Emmy-winning network television executive described the program as “amateur, amateur, amateur hour” and dubbed it a “cascade failure.”
The optics were stark. While Dokoupil scrambled in Taipei, NBC News anchor Tom Llamas and ABC News anchor David Muir were both broadcasting from Beijing — roughly 1,070 miles away — where President Trump had landed earlier Wednesday for the summit with Xi. CBS had planned identical coverage but was forced to pivot at the last minute when Dokoupil’s visa fell through. It remains unclear whether the issue stemmed from a late application or another complication.
Ratings Pressure Mounts on a Struggling Anchor
The on-air calamity arrives at a precarious moment for the storied broadcast. CBS Evening News ratings have been in free fall since Dokoupil took over earlier in 2026 in a rocky debut during which he introduced himself twice within 80 seconds and openly admitted, “first day, big problems here.”
Numbers for the week of May 4 painted a grim picture: an average of 3.7 million total viewers and just 473,000 viewers in the coveted 25-54 demographic. By comparison, ABC World News Tonight averaged 8.2 million viewers and 976,000 in the demo, while NBC Nightly News pulled 6.1 million viewers and 903,000 in the demo.
Before the chaos erupted, Dokoupil had attempted to frame the stakes of his Taipei posting. “On the surface, it might look like all the action is over there,” he told viewers, gesturing toward Beijing. “But if you zoom out from the state visit, you see one of the most important geopolitical stories of our time.”
Just after 7 p.m. Wednesday, the CBS Evening News account on X clarified the situation, confirming Schmidt’s medical emergency and assuring viewers that the cameraman was “okay and recovering.” For Dokoupil and the team behind him, however, the questions raised by the broadcast — about preparation, planning and the strategic missteps that left CBS in the wrong China — appear far from resolved.