CBS News’ new DEI advisor may need to take some racial sensitivity training herself.
Network brass reportedly tapped Dr. Donald Grant — who describes himself as a “mental health expert DEI strategist and trauma trainer.” on his instagram – To quell internal turmoil when he announced that an interview between morning show host Tony Dokoupil and author Ta-Nehisi Coates did not meet “editorial standards.”
But CBS may want to reconsider its choice of arbitrator.
Apparently the MAGA hater Grant, who is black, posted a changed cover In “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” — Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic novel about slavery — Donald Trump-supporting South Carolina Senator Tim Scott’s face has been photoshopped onto the images of several other characters.
The post on Grant’s Instagram account, which he posted earlier this year, was changed to “Uncle Tim’s Cabin” and included an image of conservative commentator Candace Owens.
A source close to the situation described the move to CBS News as “stupid” and pointed out the irony that the Tiffany network would hire someone who is a “crazy racist.”
CBS News had no comment on its decision to tap Grant, which was first reported by Puck News.
Scott immediately jumped on the controversial decision to bring in Grant, Re-posting your altered book cover on the Win Red fund-raising platform Late Monday night.
Scott wrote, “If we let the radical and intolerant left win, the above hateful rhetoric is absolutely our future.”
“If you believe in a stronger America, if you believe we are better together than divided, then I am counting on you to stand with me this time!”
Earlier in the day, CBS News called out Dokoupil after the network called out Dokoupil about the controversial author’s pro-Palestinian framing of Hamas’s war with Israel during last week’s testy interview on “CBS Mornings.” had created resentment among the employees.
CBS News boss Wendy McMahon and Adrienne Roark, president of content development for the news division, Claims “CBS Mornings” host brought his own bias to interview with Coates during a meeting with activists on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 massacre, according to multiple reports.
He said the meeting held last week did not meet editorial standards of impartiality — though he declined to provide any details, according to Puck News and Bari Weiss’s Free Press Informed.
“We will still hold people accountable. But we will do so in an objective manner, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door,” Roark said, according to the outlets. “We are here to report the news without fear or favor.”
Many of Dokopil’s supporters, including CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, did not like the harsh criticism.
Crawford quoted Puck as saying, “I didn’t even understand how Tony’s interview failed to meet our editorial standards… I thought our commitment was to the truth.”
“When someone comes on our broadcast with a one-sided account of a very complex situation – which Coates himself admits he has – it is my understanding that as journalists we are obliged to challenge that worldview, So that our audience can have access to the truth and a more balanced account.”
Critics and CBS employees on social media criticized Dokoupil’s direct question. Coates’ book “The Message” In which he condemned Israeli “apartheid” in the administration of the territories occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Dokopil, a convert for judaism Whose ex-wife lives in Israel with their two childrenTaking issue with Coates, he said the book “wouldn’t be out of place in an extremist’s bag because of its characterization of Israel”.
Dokoupil asked Coates why he did not include pro-Israel voices in his work or note that “little children” [were] Palestinians torn to pieces in terrorist attacks.
“Is it because you do not believe that Israel has the right to exist under any circumstances?” Dokopil asked.
Coats replied that the Israeli narrative was well represented in the American mainstream press and that some Palestinian voices had a chance to be heard.
“I wrote a 260-page book,” Coates said. “This is not a treatise on the entire conflict between Palestinians and Israelis,” Coates said, acknowledging that the account was based on his 10-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian West Bank.
Crawford praised Dokoupil for being “challenging”.[ing] Coates’s one-sided worldview” and then giving the author a chance to respond.
Crawford reportedly said, “It was decent…I don’t see how we can say it failed to meet our editorial standards.”
He further said that Dokoupil “prevented a one-sided account of an extremely complex situation from being broadcast on our network that was completely devoid of history or fact. “As journalists, that’s our responsibility.”
