CBS News staff in uproar after host challenges guest’s anti-Israel views, network leadership responds

CBS News is in turmoil after an internal staff meeting addressed the concerns surrounding an interview featuring Ta-Nehisi Coates on Israel’s “right to exist.”

Last week, “CBS Mornings” anchor Tony Dokoupil grilled Coates, an author and journalist, on an anti-Israel portion in his new book, “The Message,” which describes his travels “to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground,” the book summary reads.

Dokoupil brought up this section of the book, telling Coates bluntly that it read like something you would find in “the backpack of an extremist.”

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“I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim, took the cover off the book, publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” Dokoupil said. 

“So then I found myself wondering, why does Ta’Nehisi Coates, who I’ve known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second Intifada, the café bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits. Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?” the CBS anchor continued.

Coates defended the book, saying he sought to give a voice to the Palestinian people, whose views he argued were underrepresented in the American media. 

The interview prompted outcry from some CBS News staff, who felt Dokoupil pressed Coates too strongly on his anti-Israel stance. The network addressed the internal frenzy in a staff meeting Monday, which marked the one-year anniversary since the October 7th massacre in Israel. CBS leadership reassured offended staff members that following a review, they concluded that the interview did not meet the company’s “editorial standards,” the Free Press reported, which obtained audio of the staff meeting. 

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Adrienne Roark, who oversees news-gathering at the network, told employees that covering an event like October 7 “requires empathy, respect, and a commitment to truth,” according to the Free Press. 

“We will still ask tough questions. We will still hold people accountable. But we will do so objectively, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door,” Roark reportedly said.

“We are here to report news without fear or favor,” Roark added, according to the Free Press. “There are times we fail our audiences and each other. We’re in one of those times right now, and it’s been growing. And we’re at a tipping point. Many of you have reached out to express concerns about recent reporting. Specifically about the CBS Mornings Coates interview last week as well as comments made coming out of some of our correspondents’ reporting.”

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She continued, “I want to acknowledge and apologize that it’s taken this long to have this conversation.”

But not everyone at CBS agreed with the leadership’s decision to appease their staff.

CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford reportedly defended Dokoupil’s handling of the interview, remarking during the meeting, “I don’t even understand how Tony’s interview failed to meet our editorial standards… I thought our commitment was to truth. When someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of very complex situation—which Coates himself acknowledges that he has—it’s my understanding that as a journalist we are obligated to challenge that worldview, so that our viewers can have access to the truth and can have a more balanced account…,” Dylan Byers of Puck News reported her as saying.

“And that is what Tony did,” Crawford added, according to Byers. “He challenged Coates’ one-sided worldview, Coates got to respond. It was civil… I don’t see how we can say that it failed to meet our editorial standards…. Tony prevented a one-sided account from being broadcast on our network about a deeply complex situation that completely was devoid of history or fact. As journalists, that’s what we have an obligation to do.”

CBS has yet to respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Kristine Parks contributed to this report.