CBS anchor’s grilling of Coates creates rift among Paramount execs

Top executives at media giant Paramount clashed over editorial policies broken by CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil in a discussion over the Israel-Gaza war, a new report alleges.

Controversy began after author Ta-Nehesi Coates appeared on CBS “This Morning” on September 30 to promote his latest book, “The Message.” In that interview, Dokoupil scrutinized the New York Times bestselling author’s depiction of the conflict in Gaza, arguing that the content in Coates’ book “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist” and accusing Coates of framing the conflict in a way that is unfair to Israel. 

https://twitter.com/CBSMornings/status/1840749848703770679

As Puck reported, the immediate fallout from that line of questioning came from the network’s Standards and Practices division, which found that Dokoupil’s tone of questioning did not meet CBS standards.

Following the findings, CBS CEO Wendy McMahon reportedly told Dokoupil that the network would look into the issue, ultimately announcing Dokoupil had run afoul of their guidelines at an all-hands team meeting on October 7, just over a week after the segment.

Puck reports that journalists from across CBS weighed in during another meeting on October 8. Dokoupil was reportedly told  that his questioning was “xenophobic” and “Islamophobic” by some reporters, while others chimed in to defend him. That meeting caught the attention of Paramount CEO and chairwoman Shari Redstone, who called Dokoupil to extend her support. 

Redstone went on to publicly deride McMahon’s handling of the situation, telling a crowd at New York’s Advertising Week that she would’ve done things differently.

“I think we all agree that this was not handled correctly,” Redstone said. “Tony did a great job with that interview.”

But Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks did not agree with Redstone’s assessment, publicly backing McMahon’s editorial leadership in a statement just hours after Redstone’s.

“She and her leadership team are passionate advocates and stewards for CBS News standards; that won’t change,” Cheeks said in defense of McMahon. “Reasonable minds in a newsroom will appropriately pressure test and debate internally to ensure balanced and objective coverage externally.”

The rift in the newsroom and C-suite is representative of the greater trend in legacy media outlets and coverage of the war in Gaza and questions arising around editorial independence in corporate-owned media. At papers like the New York Times and CNN, editors and reporters have clashed with execs over standards and coverage, the former paper limiting the use of terms like "occupied territory" earlier this year.