George Cheeks Addresses Tony Dokoupil Interview Fallout

Add Paramount Global co-CEO George Cheeks to the list of executives weighing in on the fallout of the CBS Mornings interview between co-anchor Tony Dokoupil and author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

In a memo to staffers, Cheeks expressed support for CBS News executives while also saying that there needed to be “further substantive dialogue” about news division’s standards when it comes to questions of bias and objectivity.

Cheeks specifically referenced CBS News and Stations president and CEO Wendy McMahon and president of editorial and newsgathering Adrienne Roark in his memo. On Monday, the duo participated in an editorial call with CBS News staffers where they indicated that Dokoupil’s interview did not meet the network’s editorial standards.

“Wendy is an outstanding, accomplished leader,” Cheeks wrote. “She and her leadership team are passionate advocates and stewards for CBS News standards; that won’t change. Reasonable minds in a newsroom will appropriately pressure test and debate internally to ensure balanced and objective coverage externally.”

Cheeks’ endorsement of McMahon and Roark stands in contrast to outgoing Paramount chair Shari Redstone. During an Advertising Week panel on antisemitism on Wednesday, Redstone made it clear that she was not happy with how those executives handled the post-interview controversy. “I frankly think Tony did a great job with that interview,” she remarked, adding that she had spoken with him directly.

The New York Post reports that Dokoupil has also received support from the Anti-Defamation League. The group’s national director Jonathan Greenblatt spoke with McMahon on Monday and argued that Dokoupil did nothing wrong in challenging Coates’ “one-sided” view of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

According to The New York Times, Redstone and Cheeks had a private discussion during which she shared her concerns directly with him. The Times also reports that a planned all-staff meeting on Tuesday was changed in favor of a smaller meeting of just CBS Morning staffers.

Coates, meanwhile, addressed the controversy during an appearance on Trevor Noah‘s What Now? podcast that dropped Wednesday. In a trailer for the episode, the author suggests that he wasn’t “insulted” by Dokoupil’s line of questioning, but did feel that the journalist did a disservice to colleagues Gayle King and Nate Burleson by “commandeering” the interview. 

Read Cheeks’ full memo below:

There has been strong and growing discord within CBS News that needed to be addressed in an editorial meeting.  This must lead to further substantive dialogue about perceptions of inconsistent treatment, implicit bias and the important standards our News division has in place to establish guardrails for fairness and objectivity.