Author grilled by CBS anchor defends him as he’s shamed by network

A best-selling author has defended under-fire CBS News host Tony Dokoupil after he was criticized for a tense on-air exchange about the Middle East conflict.

The hostile segment was featured on the network’s CBS Morning show last Monday, when host Dokoupil began an aggressive interrogation with author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Coates was promoting his new book The Message, which includes a section on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prompting Dokoupil to question him about his apparent antipathy toward Israel.

CBS News reportedly condemned Dokoupil after the interview for not living up to his “standards.” However, Coates has jumped to his defense, saying he wasn’t offended by the segment.

“I don’t really have a problem with a tough interview,” Coates said Tuesday in an appearance with Democracy now. “I knew when I wrote (the book) I would be confronted with it.”

In an interview days after his segment with Dokoupil went viral, Coates defended the anchor and said he was not offended by the combative interview.

Coates continued in his follow-up interview that his only concern surrounding the CBS segment, and the subsequent controversy, was a double standard over “who was left out of the conversation.”

‘Was (Dokoupil) rude? Was he aggressive? “I can’t really comment on that, it’s not really something I think too much about,” he said.

“The question I would like to ask, though, is how often… do you see in a major news organization someone who is a defender of the Israeli state project confronted in this way?”

When Dokoupil interviewed Coates last week, his combative angle began with his very first question, when he told Coates that if he published his book without the bestselling author’s name on it, the text “wouldn’t look out of place in an extremist’s backpack.” ‘. .’

Dokoupil, who is Jewish, continued with a series of combative questions about Coates’ position on the Middle East crisis.

“Why leave out the fact that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it?” he asked. ‘Why not describe in detail the First and Second Intifadas, the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little children blown to pieces?

“And is it because you simply do not believe that Israel has a right to exist under any circumstances?”

Dokoupil, pictured with his wife MSNBC host Katy Tur, was condemned by CBS News executives for not meeting “editorial standards” for his approach to his interview with Coates

The segment sparked backlash online and led a group of CBS News employees to raise concerns about Dokoupil’s approach to executives, which in turn led to the network officially reprimanding the interview for not being up to standards.

Top CBS officials reportedly called the entire newsroom to discuss staff complaints about Dokoupil’s interview, the newspaper said. New York Times.

The outlet added that at least one veteran CBS journalist defended Dokoupil on the call, saying they didn’t see what he had done wrong.

Adrienne Roark, the network’s president of editorial and newsgathering, told the group that the interview “did not meet our editorial standards” but said it “has been addressed and will continue to be addressed in the future.” Dokoupil remains in the air.

But Dokoupil – seen as a rising star on the network – has faced a week of outrage over the segment with Coates, with many critics go to social media to decry his aggressive questioning of the author.

Coates and Dokoupil had several tense discussions about the conflict in the Middle East, with the author at one point responding, “Apartheid is right or wrong. It’s really very simple’

Coates, a best-selling author, was on the segment to promote his new book “The Message.”

Coates responded in the interview by telling Dokoupil that there is “no shortage of that perspective in the American media,” and that he tried to offer a different point of view by focusing his book on a twelve-day trip he took to Jerusalem.

In a particularly tense back-and-forth, Dokoupil asked Coates, “What is it that particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place?”

“There is nothing that offends me about a Jewish state,” Coates replied. “I am offended by the idea of ​​states built on ethnocracy, wherever they are.”

‘Apartheid is right or wrong. It’s really simple,” Coates added later in the segment.

After Dokoupil’s two co-hosts sat in stunned silence for almost the entire six-minute interview, the segment ended with laughter as Dokoupil told Coates he was “still invited to the High Holidays.”

The combative interview prompted CBS editor-in-chief and newsgatherer Adrienne Roark (pictured) to hold a newsroom-wide meeting on “editorial standards,” specifically to mark the one-year anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks.

Jan Crawford, the network’s chief legal correspondent, defended Dokoupil on the call, saying she didn’t see why his questioning of Coates’ position on Israel was a problem.

When CBS executives decried Dokoupil’s approach, they did so specifically on October 7, the anniversary of Hamas’s terrorist attacks a year ago.

Comments from the meeting were quickly shared by The free presswhich reported that Roark told employees that despite the admonishment of Dokoupil’s interview, “we will still hold people accountable.” That’s part of our job.’

“But we will do this objectively, and that very clearly means checking our biases and opinions at the door, and that applies to each and every one of us,” she said.

In response, Jan Crawford, the network’s chief legal correspondent, defended Dokoupil on the call, saying she didn’t see why his questioning of Coates’ position on Israel was a problem.

“When someone comes on our broadcast with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself admits, I understand that as journalists we have an obligation to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can gain access to the world. truth or a fuller account,” Crawford said.

“To me, that’s what Tony did.”