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CBS News executives have admitted a controversial interview with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates failed to meet editorial standards, according to a report.
Acclaimed author Coates appeared on CBS Mornings on September 30 to discuss his new book, The Message, in which he examines the Israel-Gaza conflict.
After briefly introducing his work, Coates was met with a particularly combative CBS co-anchor Tony Dokoupil who immediately compared his book to “extremist” writings, prompting backlash online.
On Monday (October 7), CNN reported that CBS executives told staffers during a daily editorial meeting that the nature of the interview had been addressed with Dokoupil.
Citing multiple sources, CNN added that multiple correspondents and producers felt that Dokoupil showed bias during the interview. Dokoupil has written publicly about converting to Judaism and said publicly that two of his children along with his ex-wife live in Israel.
CBS News and Stations president and CEO Wendy McMahon reportedly enlisted the network’s standards and practices unit to conduct a review of the discussion. The news division’s race and culture unit was involved as well, according to CNN.
The Independent has reached out to CBS News for comment.
During the interview, Dokoupil said he wondered why a “talented, smart” author would “leave out so much” from the book. “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?”
“There is no shortage of that perspective in American media,” Coates responded. “I am most concerned, always, with those who don’t have a voice.”
In The Message, Coates condemns the Israeli occupation of Palestine and contends that Israel’s existence as an ethnostate is fundamentally wrong.
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“For as sure as my ancestors were born into a country where none of them was the equal of any white man, Israel was revealing itself to be a country where no Palestinian is ever the equal of any Jewish person anywhere,” Coates, who is Black, writes in The Message.
Dokoupil accused Coates of writing a book that “delegitimizes the pillars of Israel,” asking him bluntly: “What is it that so particularly offends you about a Jewish state? A Jewish safe place, rather than any other country?”
“There’s nothing that offends me about a Jewish state. I am offended by the idea of states built on ethnocracy, no matter where they are,” Coates responded.
The author also told the news anchor: “No country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights. Countries establish their abilities to exist through force, as America did. Israel does exist. It’s a fact. The question of its right is not a question I would be faced with, with any other country.”
On social media, as well as in the CBS newsroom, debate raged over Dokoupil’s conduct.
“Tony Dokoupil stopped being a journalist, became political critic,” one viewer wrote.
“His mind was made up that Ta-Nehisi Coates was motivated to undermine Israel in his book. Coates kept telling him, his focus was on the decades of oppression on Palestinians. Not professional.”
Others were more sympathetic, with one arguing: “If he doesn’t ask those questions then we don’t get those brilliant answers and if any other people felt the same as the journalist they now have no legs to stand on.”
Analyzing the heated interview on Mehdi Hasan’s show, Mehdi Unfiltered, Coates admitted: “I was a little surprised, and then I realized what was going on, I was in a fight.”
He added: “It took me a moment...but the answers to the questions were right there at hand. “=So it was right there, you know, as a pop quiz, but I had studied.”
