CBS Interview on Israel Triggers Fight at Network; Shari Redstone Weighs In
Critique of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book prompts turmoil; Paramount’s controlling shareholder objects to how network handled the matter
Updated Oct. 8, 2024
A CBS morning-show interview about Israel with author Ta-Nehisi Coates has triggered turmoil inside the network, with executives saying it failed to meet their standards and some staffers saying management came down hard on an anchor who was doing his job.
In the interview, which aired on Sept. 30, anchor Tony Dokoupil opened by stating that the content in Coates’s new book “The Message,” which is critical of Israel, “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.”
Dokoupil deviated from the plan for the interview with his sharp critique of Coates’s book, people familiar with the matter said. The incident is one of several that led management to criticize Dokoupil’s work—without naming him directly—during a staff meeting on Monday, people familiar with the matter said.
While the network planned a tough interview, CBS’s race and culture unit has expressed concern that Dokoupil’s tone and phrasing gave a perception that he was biased, a person close to the matter said.
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of CBS parent Paramount Global, conveyed to CBS executives that she disagreed with how the situation was handled and that she didn’t believe the interview violated editorial standards, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Redstone, who spends time speaking out against antisemitism, has told people that it was insensitive for CBS News to address the matter on Oct. 7, the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.
Other elements of the questioning by Dokoupil, such as when he said Coates failed to include important historical context, also weren’t part of the preplanning for the interview.
“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?” Dokoupil asked. “Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?”
“There is no shortage of that perspective in American media,” Coates replied.
Dokoupil, whose former wife and children live in Israel, is expected to address the issue with the morning-show team.
As in many newsrooms, tensions over coverage of the Middle East have been high inside CBS News, current and former staffers said.
After the interview, several dozen CBS staffers raised questions about Dokoupil’s handling of the segment to CBS News President Wendy McMahon and Adrienne Roark, head of newsgathering and editorial manager, a person familiar with the situation said.
Inside CBS, tensions over the interview mounted throughout the past week and weekend. In Monday’s editorial meeting, CBS executives addressed the matter without calling out Dokoupil by name.
“This goes way beyond one interview, one comment, one story. This is about preserving the legacy of neutrality and objectivity that is CBS News,” Roark said, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Roark added that the network will still report objectively and ask tough questions but, “we have to check our bias and opinions at the door.”
Soon after the meeting ended, the publication the Free Press posted audio from it in an article titled, “How Is CBS Marking October 7? By Admonishing Tony Dokoupil.”
Some executives and staffers were also concerned that Dokoupil, in their view, monopolized the conversation. Co-host Gayle King was set to ask Coates about Hamas’s role in the conflict with Israel. She and Nate Burleson, the morning show’s third host, were mostly sidelined during the Dokoupil-Coates discussion.
During an interview on Trevor Noah’s podcast, Coates said King’s copy of his book was full of handwritten notes and that she told him what she planned to ask about.
It isn’t unheard of for an anchor to go off script or speak in passionate terms about an issue in the news. King made pointed comments during a May 2020 broadcast about a woman in New York City’s Central Park who called police, falsely claiming she was being threatened by a black male. That story came days after the George Floyd killing by police, leading King to remark that “sometimes it’s not a safe place to be in this country for Black men.” King has also been outspoken on issues such as guns and abortion.
There were two other segments involving Dokoupil from the Sept. 30 broadcast that some CBS executives and staffers weren’t pleased with, people familiar with the matter said.
In one, Dokoupil wrapped up a report from CBS foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab that raised eyebrows among network staffers and leadership, the people said.
Tyab was filing a report from Beirut on Israel’s airstrikes and its assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and commenting on the increased violence in the area. Tyab closed with: “Israel is preparing for some kind of ground invasion, something that has the potential of being far deadlier than anything we’ve seen so far.”
Dokoupil then commented that, “If Hezbollah thought that Israel was going to graciously take a year full of rockets, Hezbollah miscalculated.” Tyab could be seen looking displeased with the remark as his camera went off.
Last Monday’s broadcast wasn’t the first time CBS News staffers raised questions about Dokoupil. Last April, in a report about a pro-Palestinian student not being allowed to deliver her valedictorian address, Dokoupil set off some alarm bells when he said there is a “bigger question about what is acceptable public speech.”
In an email to staff on Monday night, “CBS Mornings” executive producer Shawna Thomas said staffers wouldn’t be able to attend Tuesday’s morning-show editorial meeting from home via video call, an effort to curb leaks.
—Isabella Simonetti contributed to this article.
Write to Joe Flint at Joe.Flint@wsj.com and Jessica Toonkel at jessica.toonkel@wsj.com