The chaos has deepened at CBS News with the onetime Tiffany Network being called out for allowing its principal star, Gayle King, to guilt shame the Jewish father of a Gaza hostage while reprimanding her Jewish co-host, Tony Dokoupil, for challenging the far left author Ta-Nehisi Coates regarding offensive comments he made about Israel.  

CBS News is currently reeling after its parent company’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, said CBS News executives had erred by scolding Mr. Dokoupil at their morning editorial meeting for not meeting CBS News standards in his interview with Mr. Coates.

Mr. Dokoupil’s defenders have taken to social media to point out that he is being held to a higher standard than Ms. King, who is a famous friend to celebrities whom CBS improbably employs in a news role.

Ms. King, long famous for being Oprah Winfrey’s best friend but who has cultivated a long list of other celebrity friends, including the Duchess of Sussex, has emerged in recent years as CBS News’ biggest star, serving as the principal anchor of “CBS Mornings” which is a major profit generator for CBS and its parent company, Paramount.

In a 2023 interview conducted with a father of an 8-year-old Israeli girl who was held hostage by Hamas, Thomas Hand, Ms. King used the opportunity to seemingly lecture him about the regional conflict.

“Can you tell us what your life was like when you were living there on October 7? You like living in Israel,” Ms. King asked of Mr. Hand during the segment. He replied: “Yes. It’s a difficult place to live. We’re constantly being bombarded by rockets, thousands and thousands and thousands of rockets for the last 20 years. The greatest movement towards peace that Israel ever did was we pulled out of Gaza. You know, Israel has never made such a big step towards peace, and it got us nothing. They [Gazans] didn’t make even a little baby step back to go towards peace.”

Ms. King seemingly took issue with his answer.

“But now, this seems to be all about politics. What do you say about that? You know, you have innocent children in Pales… Palestinians who are dying, innocent Israeli children who are dying, and no one seems to be able to say enough, stop that,” she said.

“I’m not interested in politics at all. My only concern is getting Emily back, whatever that takes to get her back,” Mr. Hand replied.

Ms. King faced no blowback from her pliant management for badgering the hostage’s father. By contrast, the Washington Post apologized in July for “unacceptable” behavior when it sent a tweet criticizing another hostage family for not acknowledging the suffering of Palestinians. 

In May 2023, Ms. King faced backlash for saying she believed Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s provably false claims that they were involved in a two-hour car chase with paparazzi through Manhattan and had a near-fatal car crash.

In a 2019 interview with the Washington Post, Ms. King admitted that she would never betray any of her famous friends for a story. citing how she knew that Senator Booker of New Jersey was planning a presidential run but stayed mum on the news.

“I knew Cory was going to run, but I would never have said that before he announced it,” Ms. King said. “Even at the expense of my job, I would never betray a friendship.”

Ms. King’s flouting of journalistic standards was noted in a recent report from the Free Press which reported on comments made by Mr. Coates during the podcast “What Now? With Trevor Noah” shortly after his “CBS Mornings” appearance with Mr. Dokoupil.

Mr. Coates, when asked about the controversial “CBS Mornings” interview, told the comedian that Ms. King is a “great journalist and a great interviewer,” referring to how she came to him backstage before the segment.

“Gayle came behind the stage before we went [on] and she had gone through the book, and I’m not saying she agreed with the book. She was like, ‘I’m gonna ask you about this. I’m gonna ask you about that,’ ” the author said.

Journalists who have worked for Ms. King’s own network say Mr. Coates’ admission showed how it was Ms. King who violated news standards, not Mr. Dokoupil.

“If she was showing him specific lines of questioning in advance, that would violate journalistic standards. Now, are they going to investigate her and say that what she did was not in keeping with CBS standards? I suspect not,” a former CBS journalist, who declined to give their name, said to the Free Press.

A current CBS News employee cited how the creation of a Race and Culture unit within the newsroom has created an environment that allows bias to “creep” into the network’s editorial decision-making.

“You see bias when it’s something you don’t agree with,” the source said to the Free Press.

Multiple national news organizations created left-leaning race- and social justice-focused units after the death of George Floyd. The Wall Street Journal reported that it was the CBS News Race and Culture unit that initially objected to Mr. Dokoupil’s interview with Mr. Coates and escalated the issue to senior management.

Mr. Dokoupil’s critics have accused him of unprofessionalism, bias, and even of being Islamophobic for his line of questioning during the interview with Mr. Coates in which he questioned him about his new book, “The Message,” and challenged the writer’s views on Israel. Mr. Coates’ comments on Israel, Mr. Dokoupil suggested, could be found stashed “in the backpack of an extremist.”

Mr. Coates answered Mr. Dokoupil’s questions gamely and the back and forth was respectful. Ms. King, was was presiding over the four person conversation, gave Mr. Coates the last word. Nevertheless, in the week following the broadcast of the interview, Mr. Dokoupil, who is Jewish and whose ex wife lives with their two children in Israel, faced fierce criticism within CBS News and on social media.

“Among the many reasons that this segment will likely live in infamy as a clear example of open Islamophobic racism and journalistic malpractice from @CBSNews,” the far left journalist Heidi Moore wrote in a post on X. “A truly disgraceful, embarrassing year for journalism in which we have seen how many of our colleagues are pro-apartheid, pro-genocide, and racist in ways they kept hidden.”

“Coates faces the same attacks in this clip as every journalist who has tried to speak about the occupation and apartheid; you love terrorism, you hate Jews. It’s moving to watch a man who has witnessed the truth refuse to buckle,” an America-based editor for the Guardian, Mona Chalabi, said on X.

Some have even called for Mr. Dokoupil, who is now married to the anti-Trump MSNBC host Katy Tur, to be fired.

“Ta nehisi handled this interview extremely well. This interview displays CBS’s bias and their anti-Muslim bigotry. Tony is also a racist, and he should be removed from TV,” wrote One X user the day after the interview aired.

Others have taken to social media and have come to his defense.

“Good grief. This is absurd,” a New York Times columnist, David French, said in a post on his X account. “Tony Dokoupil conducted a fair, tough interview. It was quite civil. Plus, Coates is a grown adult and can handle a hard conversation.” 

“No person is entitled to softball interviews. No person should feel entitled to softball interviews.”