Gayle King is now getting some backlash upon Ta-Nehisi Coates revisiting the vehement interview he had with “CBS Mornings.”
Coates appeared on the show in September to discuss his new book “The Message” with the show’s hosts Tony Dokoupil, Nate Burleson, and King. During the interview, Dokoupil, who is Jewish, was criticized for pressing Coates about a section in the book where he challenges Israel for the way it has treated Palestinians since capturing the Gaza Strip and the West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Dokoupil questioned why Coates’ book opted to leave out any mention of Israel’s enemies, asking Coates: “Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?”
Coates responded, “I wrote a 260-page book. It is not a treatise on the entirety of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
Dokoupil’s questioning resulted in a back-and-forth between him and Coates for the majority of the nearly seven-minute interview. King only got to ask the author one question, which was “What’s your message?”
Despite having only asked one question, King has been caught in the crossfire, with her journalistic credibility being questioned. Coates joined the “What Now? with Trevor Noah” podcast on Oct. 10, where he revealed that King informed him of the questions she would be asking him backstage.
This piece of information caused a former CBS reporter to come forward on Wednesday, Oct.9, telling The Free Press — which was recently founded by conservative writer Bari Weiss — “If she was showing him specific lines of questioning in advance, that would violate journalistic standards. Now are they going to investigate her and say that what she did was not in keeping with CBS standards? I suspect not.”
Fans responded to the report on Daily Mail by criticizing King, saying, “She’s no journalist. She’s Oprah’s friend who scored the gig because of it. Huge difference” and “Gayle King, a respected journalist? No way! The whole network needs to be investigated.”
A third person sarcastically questioned, “Someone considers Gayle King a “journalist”?”
Some believe the outrage is insignificant, with one writing, “It’s only bias to them if it’s in one direction. Bias in the other direction is fine.”
Yet another said King should not be worried about the backlash because “One call from Oprah and she will be saved.”
A ”CBS Mornings” spokesperson came to King’s defense, saying, “Gayle King is one of the most respected journalists in America. She is known for her thorough preparation and note-taking. She reads the books, consumes the content that will be discussed and extensively prepares for each interview on CBS Mornings.”
King had no intentions of working in television initially as she graduated from the University of Maryland with a psychology degree. But she ended up getting a production assistant role at WJZ-TV in Baltimore, where she met her bestie, Oprah Winfrey, who was an anchor at the time.
She eventually transitioned into the role of being a weekend anchor and then a reporter. King then went on to anchor at WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut, where she worked for 18 years before taking on more reporter roles, leading her to “CBS Mornings.”
In the interview with Noah, who claimed he was “flabbergasted” by the way Dokoupil treated Coates on set, the “Between the World and Me” author said, “The thing that went wrong in that interview, more than anything, as far as I’m concerned, is, and I know she’s getting a lot of stuff right now, so I really wanna say this.”
Continuing to defend her, Coates added, “Gayle King is a great journalist and a great interviewer. Gayle came behind the stage before we went [on], and she had gone through the book. I’m not saying she agreed with the book. She was like, ‘I’m gonna ask you about this. I’m gonna ask you about that.’”
“It was her handwritten notes,” he further explained before turning back to Dokoupil. “While on the one hand, he probably did me a service … by just kind of commandeering that interview, I don’t think he did Nate and Gayle a service, and I’m really, really sorry for them.”
King has yet to respond to the matter of her backlash.
