CBS accused of setting up division to impose ‘racial ideology’ on reporting
It’s not that CBS had a firm grasp on a reputation for impartiality or neutrality anyway.
For instance, it recently colluded with the Kamala Harris campaign in what some have described as election interference to change her answer to an interview question:
If CBS/60 minutes colluded with the Harris campaign to edit her interview, that would constitute election interference and CBS executives, Kamala Harris and her campaign should be indicted just like Trump was in New York.
— Eric Matheny (@ericmmatheny) October 10, 2024
Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.
This is what many Americans will now see. pic.twitter.com/H4w7btDv6x
— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 8, 2024
But it’s now gone further at the network, with the apparent establishment of a bureau that runs stories past a “racial ideology” agenda before allowing them on the air.
Journalists at CBS News now have to run their questions through a racial ideology department before going to air. This is exactly how the old Soviet commissar system worked. Massive corruption. https://t.co/gnzUT8P4V7
— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) October 10, 2024
According to a report at Revolver.news, “What if we told you that a so-called ‘trusted’ news source in the United States—the land of the ‘free press’—is now running their story ideas through a radical left-wing ideology department that has the power to approve or disapprove of what airs on American televisions and across the internet?”
But that’s what’s happening, the report said.
“According to a new report, CBS must now get the ‘okay’ from a radical new department before any of their stories ever make it to air or print,” the report said.
“Incredibly, that department, which OF COURSE was created in the wake of George Floyd’s overdose and heart attack death, is called the ‘Race and Culture Unit.’ You may be curious: what exactly happens if a CBS News employee runs afoul of the ‘Race and Culture Unit’? Apparently, the answer is a company-wide, hilarious struggle session.”
The story line then turned to Puck News, which explained the fight erupted over a recent CBS interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, and how executives were out of sorts because the interview allegedly “failed to meet the network’s editorial standards.”
The report said what had happened was that CBS News officials delivered that conclusion based on co-anchor Tony Dokoupil’s “interrogative on-air scrutiny of Coates” and his new book.
The report confirmed, “Dokoupil kicked things off by noting that The Message offered a one-sided account of the Israel-Palestine conflict that, absent Coates’s name and reputation and an American publisher, wouldn’t have been out of place in an extremist’s backpack. Dokoupil eventually cooled his heels and focused on some serious and significant shortcomings of the book. In particular, he keyed in on Coates’s surprising decision not to include certain critical pieces of historical context, including, for instance, the First Intifada, the Second Intifada, and various terrorist attacks.
“Surprised, but seemingly game, Coates blithely pivoted away from these concerns and put forward a passionate but historically shallow view that appeared to offer little room for the Jews’ multi-thousand-year history of global persecution in his argumentative framework. He made clear that his sympathies lay with the Palestinians, and drew parallels with his own experience in post-Jim Crow America. ”
It was, in short, “two smart guys actively disagreeing with one another,” the report said.
But within 24 hours, dozens of network workers objected to Dokoupil’s questions and some so-called journalism groups signaled their dissatisfaction. There were charges and countercharges.
So the fight went to the network’s administration, which said those questions were not run through its “Race and Culture” and “Standards and Practices” ideologies.
Dokoupil is Jewish and some said he actually upheld journalistic values by asking tough questions. But the fireworks already were lit, and the CBS staff split.
Then the “60 Minutes” interview scandal hit, the report said.
Revolver noted, “Putting aside the hilarity of it all, it’s downright Orwellian that CBS is running all of its content through a new regime-inspired racial ‘Ministry of Truth,’ undoubtedly manned by hardcore Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion commissars.”