Tipsheet

Here’s the Interview That Caps Off CBS’ Brutal End to the 2024 Election Cycle

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  October 25, 2024 11:35 PM

Last month, CBS News got into some trouble. It wasn’t about Kamala Harris’ disastrous 60 Minutes interview or their equally heinous presidential debate. It involved their morning news program and host Tony Dokoupil, who was rightly aggressive with leftist writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who penned The Message, a controversial book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The CBS This Morning host had some pointed questions since Coates took the usual woke approach to this conflict, embodying a lot of the atrocious tendencies displayed by pro-Hamas lunatics that took over college campuses last spring. 

And was it Coates who was castigated for his appalling views on the Jewish State? No, it was Dokoupil for being too hard on Coates. In other words, Dokoupil did well to call out Coates on his BS as best he could, and some CBS staffers got triggered (via Associated Press): 

An internal debate over CBS News host Tony Dokoupil’s pointed interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates about Israel has spread to the boardroom, with the chief of the network’s parent company saying … that it was a mistake to reprimand him. 

Shari Redstone, outgoing head of Paramount Global, expressed support for Dokoupil while speaking at the Advertising Week conference ... CBS News leaders … reprimanded Dokoupil, a “CBS Mornings” host for an interview they said didn’t meet their standards. 

“I think we made a mistake,” Redstone said, according to published reports. 

… CBS network President and CEO George Cheeks issued a supportive statement for Wendy McMahon, the boss of CBS News, who was involved in criticizing the interview. 

“There has been strong and growing discord within CBS News that needed to be addressed in an editorial meeting,” Cheeks said. “This must lead to further substantive dialogue about perceptions of inconsistent treatment, implicit bias and the important standards our News division has in place to establish guardrails for fairness and objectivity.” 

[…] 

The seven-minute morning show interview on Sept. 30 was about Coates’ new book of essays, and Dokoupil zeroed in right away on a section about Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank, saying the essay “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.” He wondered why Coates’ writing did not include references to Israel being surrounded by enemies that want to eliminate the country. 

[…] 

“Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?” he asked. 

Coates said there was no shortage of places where Israel’s viewpoint is represented, and that he wanted to speak for those who don’t have a voice. 

[…] 

Dokoupil later asked Coates about what offended him about the existence of a Jewish state, and he said that Palestinians “exist in your narrative merely as victims of Israel,” as if they had not been offered peace in any juncture. 

Coates said that he was offended when anyone — including the Palestinians who talked to him for his book — are treated as second-class citizens in the country where they live, comparing it to the Jim Crow-era United States where his ancestors grew up. 

In the staff call ... CBS News chief Wendy McMahon and her deputy, Adrienne Roark, said several journalists in the company had reached out to them about the interview.

After these babies had cried enough, Dokoupil issued an apology.

What a circus: 

And for what, for Coates to admit here, as he did, that if he were a Gazan, he’d partaken in the wholesale slaughter and rape of Jews on October 7: 

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These antics are acceptable, but The Washington Post not endorsing Kamala Harris is kowtowing to fascism. We’re not dealing with serious people. It’s a bit old, but it's a media story with some grade-A insanity.