There’s an eight-minute window, just after 9 a.m. ET every weekday morning, when Vladimir Duthiers goes AWOL on live TV. Viewers might think he’s just off camera at the CBS News Streaming Network anchor desk that he shares with Anne-Marie Green, but the 53-year-old newsman is frantically covering over a mile of midtown Manhattan that separates his company’s two studios.
“I start the day on CBS Mornings in Times Square, do the top of the streaming show remote from there, toss to Anne-Marie and make my way up here during her first interview,” he explains in his 57th Street office during a mid-September meeting after one such sprint. “I run out of the car, throw all my shit in the closet, race onto set, and by 9:15 I’m at the desk.”
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Since becoming a featured host at CBS Mornings in March, on top of his anchoring duties for the streamer, Duthiers is, quite literally, expected to be in two places at once. It’s a workload befitting one of the fastest-rising broadcast journalists — and someone who’s making up for lost time. Duthiers didn’t pursue his current profession until he was nearly 40. Born in New York to Haitian parents, he spent two decades in international finance before starting from scratch as an intern for Anderson Cooper. A stint as a CNN correspondent followed, but he’s spent the past 10 years occupying more and more hours in the CBS News suite with his mix of serious stories and giddy pop culture coverage. Fresh off paternity leave — his wife, Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight producer Marian Wang, gave birth to their first child in February — Duthiers spoke about his unique space in TV news.
Your backstory is wild. How’d you end up in finance for 20 years?
After school, I started sending cover letters to The New York Times, Esquire, all of the ridiculous places, thinking they’d want to hire me. Nobody called. My roommates, who saw themselves as Gordon Gekko, suggested I work with them on Wall Street while I figured writing out. “Well, I don’t know anything about Wall Street.” They said, “That’s the brilliant thing. You don’t need to.”
What was your breaking point?
I was the managing director at what was then the second-largest investment management firm in the world. Life was pretty good. But I was always that guy in the bar with Wall Street bros and dudettes saying things like, “Do you see what’s going on in Nicaragua?” I was in Stockholm on business one night and started lamenting the lack of statesmen and women. My colleague responds with the CEO of our company. I was talking about Nelson Mandela … So I quit my job and started as a grad student at Columbia University.
Anderson Cooper played a big role in your career. How’d that happen?
I’m really shy. He’s kind of shy. So, I didn’t approach him when I was interning. But one day a producer takes me up to his office and I say, “Hi, Mr. Cooper.” (Laughs.) He’s like, “Wait. You’re my age, but you’re an intern? What’s going on here?” So I tell him my story. That conversation was November 2009. A month later, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti. I get a call and it’s like, “Hold for Anderson Cooper and his producer.” Anderson says, “You speak French and understand Creole. Can you come be my production assistant and interpreter?” Um, OK! I had to be at the airport in two hours. But first they put their lawyers on because they’d never had an intern in a disaster zone.
And then you come back to a regular assistant job.
Anderson was like, “You’re going to be a production assistant here. Are you going to be OK with that?” I really was running scripts and getting yelled at in the control room when I effed up.
What was the hardest part about starting from the bottom at that age?
I couldn’t log [tapes], because I can’t type like this. (Mimes typing will all 10 fingers.) This is going to sound completely out of touch, but I had an assistant for most of my life. I grew up in the ’80s! Learning how to type wasn’t a thing. To this day, I’m a two-finger typist, looking down at the keyboard.
Your wife is in TV now but started in print journalism. What’s the biggest difference between you two?
She was an investigative reporter at ProPublica when we met. I was still an associate producer and felt very inadequate. I was like, “Hey, I cut a sound bite today!” Luckily, she was able to see past that. Print people are different. In broadcast, we navel-gaze a little too much. We’re too inside baseball. “This person’s moving there!” “This show’s got a new anchor!” She’s not interested in stuff like that.
If you were to moderate a presidential debate, what would your approach be?
There are certain candidates who lie with impunity, and they’ve become aware that there is a certain segment of their supporters who don’t have an interest in policy, as much as they want to see their favorite candidate steamroll the journalist. It’s challenging. Even the most well-read individual can still find themselves in a situation where you’re not able to keep up with the litany of half-facts and straight-up lies. It’d be an honor if they chose me as a moderator, but I don’t think they would.
Any particularly humbling on-air moments?
The other day, I mistakenly said Grace Slick had died. This was in response to the Jann Wenner thing [The Rolling Stone co-founder, in a New York Times interview, said that he did not include women or Black musicians in his book on rock “masters” on grounds that they didn’t “articulate” rock music philosophy.] I was so incensed and disappointed that somebody who had such an impact on the cultural landscape would have that attitude. He said, “Try to talk to Janis Joplin and Grace Slick.” Breathlessly, I said, “Well, they’re not around!” Grace is alive and well!
Who is your dream interview?
Kim Jong Un. I really want to understand him and what he’s trying to do on the geopolitical stage. I’d say Bruce Springsteen, but I probably wouldn’t be able to contain myself.
Your paternity leave was apparently so long that the top Google question for you is still: “What happened to Vladimir Duthiers?”
I got a lot of DMs. I’m eternally grateful that Paramount has such a great leave policy, but I don’t think most people are familiar with the fact that men can take 10 or 12 weeks off. People were like, “Did you get fired?”
Gayle King, your Mornings colleague, recently posted a video of you showing baby pictures to Oprah Winfrey for three minutes. Did you know she was blowing up your spot?
I was not aware! I only show pictures when people say, “How is Celine?” But I did show them to Oprah and Scarlett Johansson. She said, “I hear you have a new baby. Do you have any pictures?” I’m like, “ScarJo, do I!!”
Duthiers received a Peabody for his coverage of the 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls as CNN’s Lagos correspondent (the trophy was too expensive at the time — yes, Peabody winners buy their own awards! — so his wife purchased it for him years later).
Interview edited for length and clarity.
This story first appeared in the Sept. 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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