CBS News host clashes with journalist about new book on Israel in tense interview
CBS Mornings anchor Tony Dokoupil pressed author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates on whether he believed Israel had a right to exist in a Monday interview.
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus defended CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil’s recent controversial interview with anti-Israel author Ta-Nehisi Coates after his line of questioning angered network employees.
Dokoupil, who suggested that Coates’ book, "The Message," had an "extremist" message during their sit-down, was reportedly forced to meet with the network’s in-house Race and Culture Unit this week after employees complained his questions were too tough. Marcus criticized that move, declaring that the anchor was just "doing his job."
"Journalists are supposed to ask tough questions, or so I thought. Now one journalist is being rebuked, by his own network, for doing just that — and it’s no accident that his supposed offense involved defending Israel," Marcus wrote in a Post opinion column published Wednesday.
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Author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates was grilled about his views on Israel's right to exist by CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil, in an interview last week. (CBS/Screenshot)
Dokoupil, who's Jewish and has children living in Israel, sat down with Coates on September 30 to discuss the new book, which is highly critical of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian people. It also argues that pro-Israel Americans are "misled by nationalist narratives" who don’t see the reality of what the country is doing to the Palestinians.
The anchor confronted the author at the outset of the interview, telling him, "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."
He then followed up by asking why the author left out "so much," including the terror threats Israel faces in that part of the world, and the attacks against it from other countries and terror groups.
Dokoupil’s questions prompted backlash from within his own network. The New York Times reported that "a group of CBS News employees approached executives with their concerns about Mr. Dokoupil’s handling of the interview," and Dokoupil apologized and had to meet with both the CBS News standards and practices team and the Race and Culture Unit.
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Tony Dokoupil, "CBS Mornings" host, was criticized by CBS News leadership for his interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. (Getty Images; Screenshot/CBS News)
In her column, Marcus questioned whether the CBS News anchor violated the company’s journalistic standards. "But is it a violation of those standards, or is it a demonstration of them, to press an interview subject about the contours and implications of his argument?"
She suggested that Dokoupil may have been "intense" in his approach with Coates, but did nothing to warrant correction. Rather, she called it "good journalism."
"I might have advised Dokoupil to dial down his intensity a notch, or to leave more space for his co-hosts to pose their questions. But I did not see a red line crossed," she wrote. "What I saw was a prominent author challenged to defend his premises and doing so with conviction. It was good journalism, and gripping television."
The columnist concluded that the harsh treatment of Dokoupil coincides with much of the media’s harsh treatment of Israel.
"Dokoupil was treated differently because, in the modern media culture, Israel is treated differently. That is something for CBS standards and practices, and for all of us, to ponder," she wrote.
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Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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