MIAMI — Live, from South Florida, it’s Tony Dokoupil.

The new “CBS Evening News” anchor started his official second day on the job from a place he knows intimately.

Born in Farmington, Connecticut, outside Hartford, Dokoupil (pronounced “Duh-Ko-pull”) moved to Miami in 1981 as an infant.

“It’s great. I always love being down here again,” the 45-year-old told the Miami Herald at the start of a 10-city tour. “I like to say the road rose to meet us. It’s not only the place to be for the big story, but it’s also the place where my heart is, so it’s a beautiful thing.”

Miami is the core of his childhood.

“It’s where I took my first steps, spoke my first words, learned how to hit a baseball,” he said, getting emotional. “Those were my Huck Finn-Tom Sawyer years. You never forget them.”

The reason for the family’s move to Miami? His father Tony Sr.’s “career” as a marijuana dealer.

Dokoupil wrote a 2014 book about the high times in Miami, where they lived at the Saga Bay apartment complex in South Miami-Dade. The title, ”The Last Pirate,” refers to his father, who served about a year and a half in custody after pleading guilty to distribution charges and is now living a quiet life outside Boston. After his parents split — mom Ann, a retired teacher — relocated to West Virginia.

Early pictures shared with the Herald show Dokoupil living a laid-back 305 life; in one, the adorable blond toddler is holding a toy bat almost bigger than his body as his father pitches him a ball.

Dad, “the most charismatic, big-talking, aviator-sunglasses-wearing, drug-dealer-mustache guy,” was actually a decent provider. Sr.’s nefarious transactions meant he could afford to send his kid to private school at Gulliver Prep in the upscale suburb of Pinecrest.

Dokoupil often jokes that illegal drugs are the reason he knows how to read and write.

“Dad had no reason to be in Miami, except that it was the Wall Street of American weed,” said the former “CBS Mornings” personality. “My mom, God bless her, was smart enough to know [the money] wasn’t going to last forever, and material things can be confiscated. But education can never be taken away.”

Many of Dokoupil’s memories revolve around Florida’s infamous wildlife.

“Back then, Miami was so different,” he recalled. “We’d be biking and get to the end of a development, and there’d be, like a dirt road to another dirt road to a rock with graffiti on it. Then it would just turn into the Jurassic era.”

Flashbacks include stepping barefoot on a dead bee’s stinger in a pharmacy and “crying for hours,” having birthday parties at Parrot Jungle, roaming the grounds of Vizcaya; playing with sometimes frozen lizards in the front yard, even spotting an apex predator at the local park.

“One day, I saw an alligator prehistorically just walk out of the bushes,” he remembered. “Funny though, nobody was running or freaking out. They were calm, like, ‘Hey, hello there.’ Then some official looking park worker came and placed orange cones around, and that settled it.”

As middle school loomed, his father’s legal troubles were heating up and he skipped town. Dokoupil and his mother soon relocated to the Annapolis, Maryland, area, just missing Hurricane Andrew’s crash into South Miami-Dade. The Category 5 monster that struck in August 1992 flooded and damaged their former home, nicknamed by storm weary residents “Soggy Bay.”

“It’s a real wound, and I really mourn it,” Dokoupil admitted about having to decamp. “I wanted to spend every year here. I was so upset that I wore a Hurricanes [football] T-shirt just about every day for a year at my school. Which didn’t make me very popular.”

These days, Dokoupil, who went on to play Division I baseball at George Washington University then got a master’s at Columbia, could win more than a few popularity contests — though he’s well aware of his share of detractors. His role at “CBS Evening News,” whose past anchors include such legends as Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, is to shake things up.

The former morning personality was handpicked by CBS News’ controversial so called “unwoke” honcho Bari Weiss. The onetime New York Times columnist was handed the reins in October after parent company Paramount acquired her opinion platform, The Free Press.

“We live in a time in which many people have lost trust in the media. Tony Dokoupil is the person to win it back,” Weiss said in a statement of her hire. “That’s because he believes in old school journalistic values: asking the hard questions, following the facts wherever they lead and holding power to account.”

Dokoupil also put out his own message, suggesting mainstream organizations are no longer always reliable sources of information.

“A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair,” he addressed viewers in a teaser on New Year’s Day. “But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it’s not just us. It’s all of legacy media. The point is, on too many stories the press has missed the story.”

About missing the story. It would be remiss to not mention Dokoupil’s Monday night debut in NYC went viral for the wrong reasons: A segment about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz featured an image of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly. Aside from technical glitches, there was uncomfortably dead air and forced improv.

“First day, first day ... big problems here,” admitted the “dapper” host (Gayle King’s description), with his signature twinkle and great hair. That line admitting the control-room flub was later scratched from the streaming version.

The next night, though, reporting from his hometown brought Dokoupil luck. The broadcast, devoted to the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and capture of President Nicolás Maduro, ran smoothly.

Dokoupil visited Doral’s El Arepazo gas station, where locals have been rejoicing, and later hit up Made in Italy gelateria. The program also devoted airtime to “the ultimate Florida Man” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the charge, as well as a Zoom interview with the acting leader of the opposition, Maria Corina Machado.

“What an amazing conversation,” he said of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who’s in hiding. “She seems pretty darn confident that not only is Venezuela going to be free in a year from now, but that she will be the rightful leader.”

Dokoupil’s ratings were solid, despite it all. His debut drew about 4.4 million viewers, compared to his competition — 7.2 million for “NBC Nightly News” with fellow former Miamian Tom Llamas and 8.24 million for “ABC World News Tonight” with David Muir, according to Nielsen.

So, after all these years in the business, does Dokoupil feel the pressure of a bad review? And is it stressful being under such an intense microscope?

“A little,” he said. “Because instead of me doing one story, or several stories throughout the morning show as part of an ensemble, it’s just me, in a sense, even though we have all these correspondents contributing. All of it is something I have to stand by and defend and have a hand in producing. That’s a different level of responsibility.”

But feel free to bring on the personal attacks — there hasn’t much Dokoupil hasn’t heard. Aside from that initial stumble, he reveals viewers criticize him for the oddest things. It helps that he has a good sense of humor and a thick skin.

“They tell me: You talk too fast. Your hair’s out of place. You should wear an undershirt. What’s wrong with your eyes? Have you been crying? You should meet my daughter,” he explained, laughing. “I mean, everything from, ‘We love you and want you to come to dinner’ to ‘We never want to see your face again.’ ”

He gets it, though. Viewers are incredibly invested in the people they allow into their living rooms every night.

“‘CBS Evening News’ is the original name in broadcast television news,” he said of the Tiffany Network’s 85-year-old flagship program. “They invented the format. And people have very deep feelings and opinions. It’s like the Catholic Church. They practically want to consult with their priests about it.”

But whether they’re doling out insults or dishing compliments, talking to folks — and listening — is why Dokoupil got into the business, first as a writer at Newsweek, then moving into the cable TV realm at MSNBC, where he met his wife, Katy Tur. The couple have two kids, Eloise, 4, and Theodore, 6, plus he has two teenagers who live with his first wife in Israel.

“If people are talking about you, you’re part of the conversation,” he said. “You matter. They matter to me, and I’m glad that I matter to them.”

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“CBS Evening News With Tony Dokoupil” airs at 6:30 p.m. ET five nights a week. To catch a reairing at 10 p.m., go to CBS News 24/7. You can also stream on-demand at CBSNews.com.

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