SAUNDERS: How CBS News gave itself two black eyes

WASHINGTON — Mark Memmott, senior director of standards and practices at CBS News, advised his team not to refer to Jerusalem “as being in Israel,” The Free Press reported Wednesday.

The warning was included in an email sent to network news staff in late August that directed employees to be “careful with some terms when we talk or write about the news.” By careful, methinks, Memmott meant: not forthcoming.

“Yes, the U.S. embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as being Israel’s capital,” Memmott’s email continued. “But its status is disputed.”

By framing the U.S. embassy’s location as a Trump thing, Memmott ignores the fact that Joe Biden supported the Jerusalem Embassy Act from 1995 until 2017, the year Trump announced he would move the embassy. Also in 2017, 90 senators voted in favor of a resolution declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and not one senator voted against it.

Oh, and earth to CBS HQ: President Biden still recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He has not moved the embassy out of the holy city despite his criticism of Trump at the time Trump announced his decision.

It’s been a bad month for CBS News. The Free Press also reported that some CBS staffers believe there is a double standard at the network after “CBS Mornings” host Tony Dokoupil was taken to the woodshed because he asked Ta-Nahesi Coates tough questions about Coates’ new book, “The Message.”

To the horror of progressive staffers, during a Sept. 30 interview, Dokoupil said to Coates, “If I took your name out of it, took away the awards, and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away — the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.”

(When TV newsers call conservatives extremists, well, it’s like a tree falling in the woods with no one there.)

Dokoupil, who is Jewish, also asked Coates why his book did not mention countries and terror groups that want to eliminate Israel, as well as bombings that have harmed civilians and left “little kids blown to bits.”

Is it, the anchor asked the author, because you do not believe Israel should exist?

Coates did not answer the question.

Instead Coates replied, “There is no shortage of that kind of perspective in American media.”

Hmmm. I wonder what he meant by that.

Adrienne Roark, CBS News president of editorial and news gathering, said the interview did not meet “our editorial standards.” Wow.

She might as well have raised a white flag. When a major network executive suggests staff use language that obfuscates reality, that’s not journalism, it’s propaganda.

When network bigs reprimand an anchor for asking a well-known author about the glaring blind spot in his latest work, that’s the sort of thing you’d expect toadies to do.

It took Shari Redstone, chairwoman and CEO of CBS parent Paramount Global, to stand up for journalism. “I think they made a mistake here,” Redstone said at Advertising Week New York, according to The Wall Street Journal.

And: “I think Tony did a great job with that interview.”

Jan Crawford, CBS News chief legal correspondent, also spoke up for Dokoupil during a newsroom call.

“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,” she said, according to audio of the call posted on The Free Press.

“To me, that is what Tony did.”

Thing is, Coates should have stood up for Dokoupil, even if the two disagreed. Instead Coates played the victim card. Muzzling is his message.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saudners at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.