Television news anchors Tony Dokoupil and Katy Tur just might have the cutest production assistant in the biz: their son, Teddy.
“He’s got an amazing screen presence, very calm,” “CBS This Morning” host Dokoupil said on the show April 16 — Teddy’s first birthday — as the little guy sat in his lap playing with a makeup brush. “He’s calmer than Dad.”
Dokoupil, 39 and Tur, 36, who anchors “MSNBC Live” at 2 p.m., have been broadcasting both shows from the basement of their Brooklyn apartment for weeks, isolating as a family during the coronavirus outbreak. Each has a mini set on a different side of the basement, complete with a robo-cam and teleprompter, so they can broadcast without additional tech staff.
The couple, who married in 2017, also help each other prep for their shows as a nanny takes care of Teddy during the day. “We couldn’t get on-air otherwise,” Tur tells The Post. But even with great backup, it hasn’t been easy.
“It used to be just like, ‘Your clothes are taking up too much of the closet,’ ” says Dokoupil. “And now it’s like, ‘Your equipment is eating into my equipment today for my TV show!’ It’s pretty ridiculous. But we’re doing it.”
“The biggest challenge is mental,” says Tur, who anchors wearing ripped jeans or yoga pants and does her own makeup and hair. “It’s having to stay home and being deeply worried about the world around you, and fundamentally being scared of catching [the virus].”
But staying home has also let them catch Teddy’s major milestones.
“The other day at 4:30 p.m., which would have been a time when maybe one of us would have been home and the other would have been rushing to get back, we’re there kneeling with him on the carpet and he was holding the couch as he usually does,” says Dokoupil. “Then he just decided for whatever reason to push back, and he balanced on his own with maximum concentration. And then he took one shuddering half-step forward and tumbled down. We got to witness that together.” And, adds Tur, “neither of us had to lie to the other about it.”
Here, the couple takes us through a typical day.
Rise and shiny
Dokoupil rises at 4:30 a.m. to start prepping for his show — and making coffee for Tur, who gets up around 6. “She will not report for duty unless the coffee is made . . .” “Unless I can smell it,” adds Tur. “It’s like a Folger’s commercial.”
Tur will help Dokoupil prep for his show, “making sure he’s not shiny, doing his makeup and fixing his hair. Ask the CBS control room how often they see the back of my head as I’m powdering [his] face!”
He’s on the air from 7 to 9 a.m., while Tur and their nanny stay upstairs, making sure Teddy’s quiet.
Kitchen chaos
“The East Coast show is done at 9, but now I’ve got to stick around for special reports,” Dokoupil says. “But because you’re not in your office, you’re in your kitchen, it’s harder to keep that professional game face on.” Teddy is having breakfast, “getting Cheerios and strawberries everywhere,” says Tur, and they’ll figure out what else to eat.
Tur says her work day begins at 9:15 a.m., with a morning conference call. “My producers and I will go through the rundown for the show,” she says. “After that, there’s a beat where I feel like the two of us in theory could play with Teddy or have a conversation, but inevitably it’s like, ‘I’ve got to research this. I’ve got to write this script, Teddy’s screaming,’ or, ‘Oh, my God, I need a nap.’ ”
Lunch and learn
“At 11 a.m., Tony’s totally clear, and I take a shower,” says Tur. “I want to be completely ready for the show about two hours ahead of time.”
Dokoupil changes into “very unstylish dad Birkenstock foam things,” he says. “They’re like latter-day Crocs, and I wear them with socks and whatever I have on.”
Then he briefs Tur while she does her makeup in the bathroom. “I actually think the broadcast I did for an audience of one in my bathroom was probably on par if not slightly better than the one I gave to viewers in the morning,” he says.
Tur will grab a quesadilla for lunch, and heads downstairs around 1 p.m. Dokoupil — and Teddy — might pop down to hand her a copy of the script.
“Then I’m live down there from 2 to 3:30 p.m., all by myself in this lonely basement,” she says. Her husband usually takes a nap himself at this point.
Wine-ding down
“Usually around 3:33, I pour myself a glass of wine, which I think is the only real benefit to working at home,” Tur jokes. “But that’s when we get some Teddy time, that’s the moment when we can focus on the baby.”
Cooking with Daddy
The family eats dinner around 6:30 or 7 p.m. “Tony’s the cook in the house,” says Tur. “He’ll strap Teddy to him in the BabyBjörn and cook. Teddy’s really into it. If he’s whiny during the day, once you strap him to Tony and they start cooking together, he relaxes.”
The pajama game
After dinner, Teddy gets a bath, “which is good because he’s covered in food,” says Tur. “We practice walking, or wrestle him in bed.”
“That is the sweetest time,” says Dokoupil.
Tucked in and tuckered out
Around 8:30, once the kitchen is cleaned up, they both get into bed. “There’s always something stupid on Instagram that we end up laughing about,” says Tur. When Dokoupil falls asleep around 9:30, Tur often turns to Twitter.
“I’ve been interacting with a lot of doctors, nurses and small business owners online and just trying to get an idea of what is going on in their lives and what they feel we need to report, and then I just take notes,” she says. “I’ll look at the clock and suddenly two hours have passed and I’m just answering DMs.”