One of the recent low points in mainstream journalism occurred in 2024 when Tony Dokoupil, a host on “CBS Mornings,” asked a few tough questions to Ta-Nehisi Coates about his new book, “The Message,” which was highly critical of Israel.
Among his questions, Dokoupil asked why Coates left out of his book the crucial context that “Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it.” Dokoupil was asking a tough question to an author who specializes in them.
For many people at CBS, though, he went too far. It didn’t take long for a mini uproar to erupt. “CBS Rebukes Anchor Over Tense Interview With Ta-Nehisi Coates,” The New York Times reported, evidently because the interview had “fallen short of network editorial standards.”
No one asked the obvious question: Had the interviewer asked tough questions to a conservative like Ben Shapiro, how many complaints would have emanated from CBS? Less than zero?
Complaining about tough questions is one thing we’re not likely to see from new CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
Another is selective editing of interviews, as we saw with the infamous “60 Minutes” segment with Kamala Harris. It turns out that in the official airing of the interview, the editors cut out the beginning of an answer that made Harris look totally incoherent, showing only the latter part of the answer that made her look better.
Again, what are the odds that the same editors would have cut out the embarrassing section had the interviewee been a Republican? Do we even need to ask?
If you question mainstream journalists and editors about allowing their political bias to influence their journalism, many would spit out their mimosas in shock that anyone would dare question their objectivity.
But before they virtue signal their outrage, they might ask themselves why trust in media has hit an all-time low, with just 28% of respondents in the latest Gallup poll expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust. When Gallup began measuring trust in the 1970s, between 68% and 72% of Americans expressed confidence in the media.
Hiring Bari Weiss is CBS making a statement that they’d like to earn that trust back.
There are certainly mainstream journalists who make a genuine effort at objectivity. But the reality is that for several decades our cultural pillars—from the mainstream media to academia to Hollywood—have been captured by one political party and an elitist attitude that has ignored half of the country.
The shameful failure to cover President Biden’s mental decline is only one in a long list of a bias-driven media carrying water for their political team.
I see a similar hardened bias among many in the Jewish world. Voting Democrat is like membership in a club. They may hate some of their party’s policies, but they will always vote for the team. Who wants to risk dirty looks at the country club if word gets out that you’ve gone over to the dark side?
From what I’ve seen of Weiss and her track record as a writer and at The Free Press (we know each other and have met a few times), she has no problem ruffling some feathers if it means going for the truth, politics or no politics. Her arrival at CBS has already caused a stir among those who can’t believe the network could benefit from a dose of disruption. It’s ironic that this disruption aims to bring back the credibility of the old days, when CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America.
Unlike many of her peers in the legacy media, Weiss will carry water not for a political party but for the bipartisan search for truth. She will disrupt a media world that has been spoiled for too long with the smugness of groupthink. By challenging that groupthink with more viewpoint diversity and objective and dynamic reporting, she will model the fearless nature of old-school journalism.
I have no doubt this new career chapter will include some tough questions.
