CBS News is in disarray, facing multiple controversies irking everyone from former President Trump and his supporters to pro-Israel viewers and media professionals in the process.
CBS first sparked confusion by airing two different answers to the same question about Israel in its “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, replacing a clip from the Democratic nominee that aired Sunday on “Face the Nation” when the interview package aired in a primetime special on Monday. That same day, CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil was shamed by colleagues for being too tough on a pro-Palestinian author during an interview that reportedly didn’t sit well with the network’s Race and Culture unit.
The two issues have resulted in negative attention for the network, but Fox News contributor Joe Concha feels at least the editing controversy can be quietly put to bed if CBS chooses.
“It’s very simple if you’re CBS News… release the entire interview on CBSNews.com and let everybody see it from start to finish without any edits or jump cuts. Release the unedited transcript, while you’re at it,” Concha told Fox News Digital.
CBS ’60 MINUTES’ AIRS TWO DIFFERENT ANSWERS FROM VP HARRIS TO THE SAME QUESTION
“But, CBS only released the transcript of the edited portion of the interview,” Concha added. “Why is that? The same news division that screams about the importance of transparency is being anything but transparent here.”
Harris was mocked by conservatives when footage of her offering a lengthy “word salad” was aired by CBS on Sunday’s “Face the Nation” to promote the “60 Minutes” sit-down, when Bill Whitaker asked why it seemed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the U.S. However, the vice president’s lengthy answer didn’t make the version that aired on Monday night on “60 Minutes” and a shorter, more focused answer to the same question was shown instead. It appeared to be two different parts of one lengthy Harris response.
Conservative Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell pointed out that CBS has found itself in hot water for questionable edits in the past.
In 2016, former President Bill Clinton said his wife, then-candidate Hillary Clinton, “frequently” suffered spells of dehydration during an interview with then-anchor Charlie Rose, before correcting himself and saying “rarely, but on more than one occasion.” However, “CBS Evening News” edited out the word “frequently” when it aired the Clinton interview, explaining it was for time purposes.
More recently, “60 Minutes” came under fire in 2021 for suggesting Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave the Publix grocery store chain preferable treatment to offer the coronavirus vaccine based on its donations to his PAC.
“The only way to clear this up is to release the full video and identify who was responsible for this deception,” Bozell told Fox News Digital. “CBS and the individuals behind this need to be held accountable. How is this not a direct campaign contribution, an effort to help her presidential race?”
Former President Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, have also publicly called for CBS to release the full video. Trump even called for CBS to lose its license over “election interference.”
It started when Whitaker asked Harris why it seemed like Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the U.S.
“Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region,” Harris responded in the “Face the Nation” version.
When CBS aired the interview on Monday night, it aired a different answer to the exact same question.
“We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” Harris said.
CBS News has not released the unedited tape. The Harris campaign dismissed any notion that it asked for the rambling answer to get cut.
“We do not control CBS’s production decisions and refer questions to CBS,” the Harris campaign told Fox News Digital.
Former CBS News staffers are reportedly calling on the network to launch an external probe into the ongoing “60 Minutes” controversy.
“I think there should be an outside investigation,” a former CBS News journalist told The New York Post on Thursday. “Obviously, there’s a problem here. If they care about journalistic integrity, they would conduct an investigation or release the full transcript.”
As pressure builds for CBS News to publish the unedited interview to determine if producers were purposely cleaning up Harris’ “word salad” or simply cutting a long-winded answer for time, the Dokoupil ordeal continues to generate even more negative publicity.
The saga began last week when Dokoupil interviewed author Ta-Nehisi Coates about his book “The Message,” which describes in part his travels “to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives.” The Jewish CBS News anchor irked liberal colleagues by bluntly stating that it read like something you would find in “the backpack of an extremist” and pressing Coates on whether he believes Israel has the right to exist. The book is heavily anti-Israel and has been criticized for omitting significant context about Palestinian terrorism and the Jewish state’s extraordinary security situation.
At a company conference call on Monday, CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon and editorial chief Adrienne Roark rebuked Dokoupil, infuriating staffers whose values don’t align with their colleagues who complained about Dokoupil in the first place.
CBS leadership reassured offended staff members that following a review, they had concluded that the interview did not meet the company’s “editorial standards,” the Free Press reported, which obtained audio of the staff meeting.
Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone, who oversees CBS’ parent company, defended Dokoupil this week during a panel discussion, saying he had done a good job. So did CBS chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who spoke up for him at the editorial meeting.
“It sounds like we are calling out one of our anchors in a somewhat public setting on this call for failing to meet editorial standards for, I’m not even sure what,” Crawford said.
“I thought our commitment was to truth. And when someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account, a more balanced account,” Crawford added. “To me, that is what Tony did.”
Dokoupil eventually expressed regret for the interview causing tumult, but not for his line of questioning, according to The New York Times.
A longtime CBS insider told Fox News Digital they were appalled by the way network honchos handled the situation.
“They’re literally chiding a reporter for doing the journalistic thing while encouraging everybody, apparently, to do the journalistic thing with literally no self-awareness,” the CBS News insider said.
The insider said many longtime CBS News employees feel its journalism started to suffer when the company went “full DEI,” referring to the diversity, equity and inclusion push that has rocked corporate America in recent years.
“If you listen to that stupid call, which everybody was just outraged by… the corporate speak they use, ‘We hear you,’ and all that stuff, it doesn’t sound like a news division. It sounds like a creepy DEI organization,” the insider said.
“People are mad, there is a huge outcry,” the insider said. “Prior to the Tony stuff, I had just been hearing chatter about the DEI hires and promotions that makes no sense in terms of merit.”
Puck media reporter Dylan Byers called it a “fast-metastasizing, five-alarm s—show” that has polarized CBS News in a piece that suggested Dokoupil found himself in hot water for asking questions that were not cleared by the network’s Race and Culture unit.
“Last Tuesday, while the CBS News leadership was consumed with the network’s vice presidential debate, the issue was elevated to the network’s Race and Culture unit, which was formed in the summer of 2020, amid the George Floyd reckoning, and determines whether the ‘tone, content, and intention’ of any segment or package are suitable for the network’s air,” Byers reported.
“The unit, led by Alvin Patrick, determined that while Dokoupil’s questions and intentions were acceptable, his tone was not,” Byers added. “Meanwhile, the network’s Standards and Practices division, led by Claudia Milne, determined that Dokoupil had not followed the preproduction process wherein questions are run through Race and Culture and Standards and Practices.”
The CBS News Race and Culture Unit has “a four-pronged role at CBS News and Stations as a reviewer, an incubator, a producer and a library,” according to the CBS website. The unit sees its primary role as a reviewer to “ensure all stories have the proper context, tone and intention.”
The New York Times previously reported that Dokoupil ultimately had to meet with both the CBS News standards and practices team and the Race and Culture Unit.
The Free Press on Wednesday reported that Mark Memmott, CBS News’ senior director of standards and practices, had emailed all employees in late August telling them to “be careful with some terms when we talk or write about the news” regarding the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Included on his list of controversial terms was “Jerusalem.”
“Do not refer to it as being in Israel,” Memmott wrote, according to the Free Press.
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CBS NEWS JOURNALISTS HAVE ‘PREPRODUCTION PROCESS’ TO RUN QUESTIONS BY RACE AND CULTURE UNIT: REPORT
All this comes on the heels of the CBS News Vice Presidential Debate, where CBS News anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan were panned for fact-checking Vance after the network announced that it would not allow live fact-checking.
“Almost every question was designed to make Republicans look bad, slanting Trump’s views on childcare. And yet Vance seemed to take it all in stride. And he really, I think, with most questions, really showed his humanity and also his knowledge of the issues,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham said at the time.
The debate failed to lift ratings for “CBS Evening News” despite O’Donnell being front and center.
Tom Fishman, CEO of Builders, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to overcome toxic polarization plaguing America, feels the CBS controversies underscore declining American trust in the media.
“With more and more Americans feeling skeptical of political bias in news reporting, there is a big opportunity for the media to build back trust by demonstrating a commitment to telling us not just what we want to hear, but also what we need to hear, even if that information challenges our existing views. And if their work is questioned, leaders may find it necessary to offer greater transparency as a means of continuing to build that trust back,” Fishman told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn, David Rutz and Yael Halon contributed to this report.
