In April 2023, CBS News correspondent Vladimir Duthiers attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, where he met a high-profile fan.
“I know this guy,” was how Vice President Kamala Harris greeted the Duthiers when they were introduced.
“7:47, every day.”
Harris, now a Democratic presidential candidate in 2024, was referring to the moment when “CBS Mornings” viewers encounter Duthiers in his popular regular segment, “What to Watch.”
For four minutes every weekday morning, Duthiers regales co-hosts Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil and Nate Burleson with insight into an upcoming news event or the latest pop culture trend. If you need to know why the word “demure” is gaining traction on social media, Duthiers is your man.
Nielsen data shows that the show's ratings soar during the quarter-hour in which it is scheduled to appear.
At a time when consumers are turning away from traditional television news, Duthiers, who recently celebrated his 10th anniversary at the network, has become a personality people can’t stop following. He has become the star of “CBS Mornings,” where he frequently serves as co-anchor.
Not bad for a quintessential late-blooming scholar: a man who took a risky career turn in his late 40s, running up credit card debt as he traded a well-paid life in finance to immerse himself in journalism during a time of great upheaval for the industry.
Although Duthiers was determined to work in journalism, he never expected to be in front of a camera. A first-generation American of French-Haitian descent and with a name inspired by his biological father’s love of Russian literature, he grew up feeling like an outsider.
“I had some friends, but I was a loner,” Duthiers said of his youth, which he spent most of his time in the New York area. “If you asked them, they would tell you that the guy on TV was not the guy we grew up with.”
By the time he was approaching 40, Duthiers, 54, had spent nearly two decades in investment management, earning a six-figure income at the firm AllianceBernstein. He lived in six countries and traveled the world closing multimillion-dollar deals with banks and governments. He had 10 people reporting to him.
But that wasn't his original plan.
Duthiers, a lifelong news junkie, grew up glued to the “Today” show and “60 Minutes.” After graduating from the University of Rhode Island, where he worked at the student newspaper and radio station, he sent out resumes to newsrooms around the country. He never got a call back and listened to friends telling him to get a job on Wall Street.
Although Duthiers was successful in finance, he felt like a fish out of water. If he mentioned tragic international events to his colleagues, their response was: “Who cares? We’re doing deals,” he recalled. When he spoke of his journalistic aspirations, he was told to volunteer as a television news contributor – essentially, a paid guest – to weigh in on business and finance.
“I said I didn't want to be a pundit or a commentator. I want to be a journalist,” he said.
Once Duthiers had saved enough to pay her mortgage and two years of tuition, she took a chance and enrolled at Columbia Journalism School in 2009. At the same time, she applied for entry-level jobs. Her age and resume sparked skepticism.
“Most of the mainstream media weren’t interested,” he said. “Everyone thought I was having a midlife crisis.”
Duthiers eventually landed an unpaid internship at CNN, working on Christiane Amanpour’s show. Before starting, she took a tour of the network’s New York headquarters with her journalism school class. It forever changed her career path.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper had a habit of meeting with students visiting the network's offices and immediately noticed Duthiers, who, unlike the others, was wearing a tie.
“He stood out immediately,” Cooper said in an interview.
Cooper told Duthiers to come see him once the internship started. This led to him being hired as a production assistant on “Anderson Cooper 360°.”
Although Vladimir Duthiers found success in the world of finance, he felt like a fish out of water. Since then, he has become the odd man out on “CBS Mornings,” where he frequently serves as co-host.
(Oliver Farshi / For The Times)
“One of the reasons I wanted to help was because I thought what I was doing was very risky,” Cooper said. “I was risking everything.”
Duthiers scheduled his classes at Columbia in the morning and went to work in the afternoon until 11 p.m., performing tasks done by entry-level staff.
“There were days when I came home with tears in my eyes,” she said. “I didn’t even know how to type.”
But soon after he began, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti. Remembering that Duthiers was fluent in French and Creole, Cooper's producers sent him with the anchor to the disaster zone, where they spent six weeks covering the story.
Cooper said Duthiers was prepared to handle the stress.
“If I was 21, I would have been more worried about putting someone in that situation,” Cooper said. “I just felt like he had enough life experience and knew what he wanted, so let’s just let him do it.”
“He didn't want to leave,” Cooper added.
When Duthiers returned, CNN offered him a job as a correspondent, but with a lower starting salary than usual due to his level of experience. He told them he would do it for free, words his agent told him he should never say again.
Duthiers was assigned to the network's bureau in Lagos, Nigeria. He won a Peabody Award for his reporting on the more than 200 girls kidnapped from their school by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram. Over the next two years he traveled throughout Africa, the Middle East and Thailand, covering breaking news for the network.
When she returned to the US, she caught the attention of CBS News, where executives immediately welcomed her combination of youthful looks and life experience that now included several years of field reporting.
“He had the ability, interest and curiosity of a rookie, but the work ethic of someone who had already had a full career,” said Diana Miller, former executive producer of the CBS morning show.
Duthiers was hired as a weekend correspondent but was immediately given opportunities at the morning show anchor desk. When CBS News launched its 24-hour streaming service in 2014, management tapped him to be a part of it. In addition to “CBS Mornings,” Duthiers anchors CBS News 24/7, including a new daily burst show.
on the free streaming service where you monitor live news events displayed on a wall of screens.
Miller, who met Duthiers when they both worked at CNN, came up with “What to Watch.” He believed the CBS morning show needed a regular segment that viewers would turn to every day, and he believed Duthiers had the tools to make it work.
“He lights up with a wide variety of topics, news and culture,” Miller said. “We knew he would have energy and have fun with it.”
Duthiers' effervescence did not come naturally. He was a shy boy who changed schools frequently and was bullied. He said he was described as “racially ambiguous” and people frequently asked him about his ethnicity.
His time alone as a child turned Duthiers into a voracious reader and consumer of movies and TV shows. He’s turned that into an advantage when he enthusiastically engages with actors, musical artists or authors who appear as guests on “CBS Mornings.” (In one full-circle moment, Duthiers interviewed Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, when they collaborated on a book.)
From left, Vladimir Duthiers chats with “CBS Mornings” co-hosts Tony Dokoupil, Gayle King and Nate Burleson on the set of the show in New York.
(Michele Crowe / CBS)
“People say to me, ‘Can you really be that excited?’” he said. “I tell them that these people put their heart and soul into work that they are proud of. At the very least, I should celebrate that.”
Duthiers is part of a Peabody Award-winning couple. He is married to Marian Wang, a senior producer on HBO's “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” But she has two [Peabodys]”, he noted.
Duthiers knows he is something of a unicorn in the news industry, where jobs are disappearing fast. At CBS, widespread cuts are expected because of parent company Paramount Global’s planned merger with Skydance Media. Paramount Global aims to eliminate 2,000 jobs, or 15% of its staff, by the end of the year. Duthiers knows that most of the students in his class at Columbia Journalism School are not in the business.
“My experience tells me that if you make yourself indispensable and show a real passion for this craft, you can get a job,” he said. “Columbia gives me an example of what can happen. I don’t know if that will work for everyone.”
