Earlier this week, a Jewish cohost of CBS Mornings conducted a somewhat hostile interview with a prominent critic of Israel. There shouldn't be anything particularly notable about this—it is the job of journalists to ask probing questions, and for skilled thinkers to address them. And yet the episode has produced a meltdown at CBS, with some staffers apparently demanding that the network take action to punish the interviewer.
They seem to have gotten their way, at least up to a point. The host, Tony Dokoupil, had to meet with the network's standards and practices team, as well as its "race and culture unit," according to The New York Times. During an internal staff conversation that was leaked to The Free Press and other news outlets, network executives asserted that Dokoupil had "failed to meet editorial standards." CBS even planned to invite a "mental health expert, DEI strategist and trauma trainer" to attend the staff conversation and offer guidance; these plans were scrapped after drawing widespread and well-deserved ridicule on social media. (More on that in a moment.)
