Serious drama is unfolding at CBS News after one of its anchors committed a journalistic act — no, definitely not at last week’s vice presidential debate — and the guilty party now faces punishment from the DEI judge and jury.
Here’s what’s going on.
Tony Dokoupil, host of the CBS morning show – aptly named “CBS Mornings” – recently interviewed radical leftist Ta Nahesi-Coates, an outspoken proponent of reparations. Nahesi-Coates was appearing on the show to promote his novel book “The Message,” which The Free Press called “a masterpiece of twisted arguments and moral confusion,” when the incident occurred. It turns out that Nahesi-Coates is also a raging anti-Semite and has previously complained that the Israel-Hamas conflict is not a complicated issue as some claim. Instead, he argued, “It’s complicated when you want to take something away from someone.”
Interviewer Dokoupil had the nerve to do so Ask Nahesi-Coates on his anti-Israel statements.
“Why ignore the fact that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to destroy it?”
“Why ignore the fact that Israel is dealing with terrorist groups that want to destroy it?”
“Why not go into more detail about the first and second intifada?. . . the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little children blown to pieces?”
This, as Dylan Byers of Puck News reported On X, things started to go wrong for Dokoupil. According to Byers:
“CBS NEWS was abuzz after a CBS Mornings interview in which host Tony Dokoupil pressed Ta-Nehisi Coates over his pro-Palestinian portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The interview was celebrated by many – “tense and substantive” according to WaPo – but angered some at CBS who felt Dokoupil brought his own bias.
Then Byers noted that CBS News bosses Wendy McMahon and Adrienne Roark, at a meeting Monday morning, “told staff that the interview did not meet editorial standards for impartiality, but they declined to elaborate on how and why.” As they tried to move on, CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford criticized the leaders’ decision with the following words…”
“I don’t even understand why Tony’s interview didn’t meet our editorial standards… I thought we were committed to the truth. When someone comes to our show with a one-sided portrayal of a very complex situation – which Coates himself admits he does – I understand that as journalists we have an obligation to challenge that worldview so that our viewers have access to the truth and a more balanced portrayal receive
“And that’s exactly what Tony did. He questioned Coates’ one-sided worldview, Coates had to answer. It was polite…I don’t understand how we can say it didn’t meet our editorial standards…Tony.” We prevented our network from airing a one-sided report on an extremely sophisticated situation, devoid of any history or facts. As journalists, we have a duty to do this.
This is especially happening on the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, which is not an insignificant point here. It appears that CBS News leadership agrees with Ta Nahesi-Coates on the Israel issue.
Byers later jumped back on X to admit his followers knowledge that in response to the chaos, CBS hired “self-proclaimed mental health expert, DEI strategist and trauma coach” Dr. Donald Grant would be brought in to moderate discussion on this topic at a staff meeting tomorrow.
Of course, this isn’t surprising since this is CBS News. Just last week, two supposed journalists moderated a somewhat consequential vice presidential debate, and all we got out of it were biased “fact checks,” stern facial expressions, and thought bubbles like “Why is he explaining this to me wrong?” Not their finest moment, but CBS News has these days very few of them.
Not surprising, but crazy nonetheless.
Oh, and that self-described DEI and trauma expert? This is what he cares about:
As @JerryDunleavy pointed out, here’s an Instagram post from the DEI expert CBS News called into their offices tomorrow for an all-employee fight session https://t.co/Zw6wWIj7J5 pic.twitter.com/j5ny5dwIsQ
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 7, 2024
Also this:
This is the latest tweet from Dr. Donald Grant Jr., the self-proclaimed DEI strategist who CBS News invited to moderate a convo in their newsroom after people at CBS News collapsed after a moderator dared to ask Ta-Nehisi some tough questions Questions about his biased book about Israel. https://t.co/Y9M4J7xZcE pic.twitter.com/OSQ7Qv9WKT
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) October 7, 2024
So the CBS News trauma session will go exactly as you expect. Radical leftist nonsense and shaming will be plentiful, but common sense and reality will be in compact supply.
It remains to be seen whether Tony Dokoupil will have to make an obsequious apology for doing his job in order to keep his job, but we’ll keep an eye on this.
