CBS latest news outlet to face revolt from far-left staff after meltdown over contentious Israel interview
The drama unfolding at CBS News mirrors controversies at other news organizations including NBC News, CNN and The New York Times where far-left staff revolt against their bosses.
CBS News is the latest news organization to face turmoil from its far-left wing of the newsroom after what was widely seen as a tough but civil interview led by "CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil.
Dokoupil, who is Jewish and has children living in Israel, grilled "The Message" author Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose new book is critical of Israel.
"The content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist," Dokoupil told Coates, asking him "why leave out so much" and "What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place?"
What transpired was a spirited conversation between Dokoupil and Coates that, despite its intensity, never boiled over on-air. The same, however, cannot be said inside the network, according to various reports.
CBS leadership reassured offended staff members that following a review, they concluded that the interview did not meet the company’s "editorial standards," the Free Press reported, which obtained audio of the staff meeting.
While a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that Dokoupil would not be punished over the interview, he was forced to meet with the network’s in-house Race and Culture Unit following complaints. According to The New York Times, the conversation "focused on Mr. Dokoupil’s tone of voice, phrasing and body language" during the interview.
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The New York Post also reported that Dokoupil expressed regret to staffers at a meeting, one network insider describing it, "There were tears. [People were] very upset."
Some have rallied in his defense, like CBS News legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who went to bat for him during a network conference call, and Shari Redstone, chair of CBS News' parent company Paramount Global, who called the network's handling of Dokoupil a "mistake." CBS CEO George Cheeks issued a memo standing by the news network's leadership.
The ideological takeover of CBS newsroom appears to be in full swing. And it's far from the only news outlet impacted by its far-left staffers.
Earlier this year, NBC News was engulfed in scandal fueled by its own staffers after the network announced it had hired former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a contributor.
The practice of major news organizations hiring ex-lawmakers, government officials and political insiders has existed for decades and has largely been non-controversial, but a chorus of NBC talent, particularly from its staunchly liberal sister network MSNBC, publicly disavowed McDaniel's hiring, citing her alleged actions in trying to block the certification of Michigan's election results in 2020.
"We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons including, but not limited to, as lawyers might say, Miss McDaniel’s role in Donald Trump’s fake elector scheme and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone," Joe Scarborough said on "Morning Joe."
"To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage," co-host Mika Brzezinski followed. "But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier. And we hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor."
Rachel Maddow, MSNBC's biggest star, blasted NBC's "inexplicable" decision to hire McDaniel and expressed hope that the network would reverse its decision.
"Ronna McDaniel will not appear on MSNBC, so says our boss since Saturday. And it has never been anything other than clear," Maddow assured viewers.
Several among the network's liberal talent including Chuck Todd, Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid and Jen Psaki also spoke out against the move.
Just four days after NBC News announced McDaniel's hiring, she was terminated.
"There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group," NBCUniversial News Group Chairman Cesar Conde told staff in a memo. "After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor."
Conde acknowledged McDaniel's hiring had undermined the goal of a "cohesive and aligned" newsroom and offered an apology to his staff.
"I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down," Conde wrote. "While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it."
Last year, CNN staff openly revolted when it welcomed former President Trump for a live town hall.
"It's hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN," CNN's then in-house media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote in his "Reliable Sources" newsletter. "Yes, some news was made… But for most of the night, the nation's eyes were transfixed on Trump's abuse of the platform that he was given."
CNN's Anderson Cooper offered a somber monologue addressing the town hall, telling his viewers "Many of you have expressed deep anger and disappointment. Many of you are upset that someone who attempted to destroy our democracy was invited to sit on a stage in front of a crowd of Republican voters to answer questions and predictably continued to spew lie, after lie, after lie" before attacking Trump's supporters in the audience and offering a lukewarm defense of the town hall.
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The most blistering takedown of the Trump town hall came from veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, who went on a tear during a commencement address she gave at the Columbia Journalism School, revealing she had confronted her then-boss Chris Licht directly about her disapproval.
"My management believes they did the right thing, a service to the American people. Some reports have written about important new thoughts and things that we learned from Trump's very mouth that night… Time could very well prove that Trump's electroshock therapy to the world jolts the undecided into greater awareness," Amanpour said. "For me, of course, the fact that the American people voted three times against Trump and Trumpism- 2018, 2020, 2022- also speaks volumes. We've done our duty. We have told the story. We have put that in everybody's awareness and people have had the opportunity to make their choices and they have done."
She continued, "I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear in that particular format," which sparked applause from the audience.
Amanpour's speech was liked and shared on social media by dozens of CNN staffers, including Jake Tapper. The town hall was widely believed to be the moment when Licht lost the trust of CNN's workforce. He was ultimately fired weeks later.
Perhaps the first instance in which a news organization faced such public backlash from within the newsroom was in 2020 when The New York Times published the now-infamous "Tom Cotton op-ed."
The Republican senator argued in a piece titled "Send in the Troops" that the president should deploy the military to quell the George Floyd riots that sparked havoc in cities across the country.
Dozens of Times employees rushed to social media in a coordinated campaign, many of them echoing the phrase "Running this put Black @nytimes staff in danger."
THE NEW YORK TIMES REMAINS HAUNTED BY THE TOM COTTON OP-ED ALMOST 4 YEARS LATER
Days later, the Times updated Cotton's piece with a lengthy editor's note declaring it "fell short of our standards and should not have been published." Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, who initially defended the op-ed's publication, later reversed himself, blaming "a rushed editorial process."
Two members of the Times Opinion staff, James Bennet and Adam Rubenstein, were pushed out at the Times as a result. Another staffer, James Dao, was reassigned to a different department.
It was following that meltdown when Bari Weiss declared in her resignation letter as one of the paper's opinion staff editors, "Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor."
Fox News' Brian Flood and Yael Halon contributed to this report.
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