As CBS Mornings host Gayle King fights accusations that she asked author Ta-Nehisi Coates questions before Tony Dokoupil questioned him about his pro-Palestine stance, an interview she did with the father of an Israeli hostage raises questions on whether there is a double standard. on the network.
King, along with co-host Dokoupil, interviewed Thomas Hand in November 2023 after Hamas kidnapped his then-8-year-old daughter Emily from a sleepover during the October 7 attacks.
He told CBS anchors that when he was initially told she was dead, he was “relieved that it was over for her.” Then, on October 31, the Israeli military told him that Emily had been kidnapped alive, as no blood was found near or inside the kibbutz she was on.
King and Dokoupil began by talking about Emily’s upcoming ninth birthday, which she would ultimately spend in the Hamas tunnels in Gaza. King also asked Hand: “How do you spend your days, your hours, what keeps you going?”
The interview took a turn when King asked the distraught father what he thought about the “innocent Palestinians who are dying” and the “innocent Israeli children who are dying.”
Thomas Hand, left, appeared on CBS Mornings with Gayle King, right, and Tony Dokoupil in November 2023 after Hamas kidnapped his daughter Emily during the October 7 attacks.
Pictured: Emily Hand, 9, spent her ninth birthday in the Hamas tunnels in Gaza.
The question arose after Hand explained that everything Israel received for withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005 were the terrorist attacks of October 7 that killed about 1,200 people.
“(Israel is) a difficult place to live, we are constantly bombarded with rockets, thousands and thousands and thousands of rockets for the last 20 years,” said Hand, who is originally from Ireland but has lived in Israel for 30 years. .
‘The greatest move toward peace Israel has ever made was our withdrawal from Gaza. Israel has never taken such a big step towards peace. And it didn’t get us anything. They didn’t even take a small step back to move towards peace.’
In response, King asked Hand to discuss the politics of the war between Hamas and Israel.
‘Now this seems to be all a matter of politics, what do you say about it? There are innocent Palestinians who are dying, innocent Israeli children who are dying, and no one seems to be able to say, “Enough is enough, enough is enough.”
Hand, who at the time of this interview did not know whether her daughter was alive or dead, let out an audible sigh and a nervous laugh before answering King’s question.
“I am not interested in politics at all. My only concern is getting Emily back. Whatever it takes to get her back,” Hand told King in response.
Hand was reunited with her daughter on November 26 after Hamas released her and other hostages.
“I am not interested in politics at all. My only concern is getting Emily back. Whatever it takes to get it back,’ he said.
Emily, who has dual Irish and Israeli citizenship, was released by Hamas on November 26 and had a moving reunification with her father.
The clip of this tense resurgence of back-and-forth comes after Dokoupil was reportedly criticized by CBS News executives for his harsh questioning of Coates about his apparent antipathy toward Israel.
Coates was on the show promoting his book The Message, which Dokoupil said “wouldn’t look out of place in an extremist’s backpack.”
CBS News reportedly condemned Dokoupil for failing to meet its “standards.”
Coates defended Dokoupil, who is Jewish, but later said King allegedly told her backstage what she was going to ask him.
Had he, in fact, provided specific lines of questioning to Coates, King would have violated the network’s journalistic standards, a former CBS reporter said. The free press.
Now, some point out that while Dokoupil was criticized for his conduct, King has faced no consequences for what he said to the father of a girl who spent 50 days in brutal Hamas captivity.
A morning show segment between Tony Dokoupil (right) and author Ta-Nehisi Coates (left) sparked outrage over the host’s aggressive questioning last week.
Lahav Harkov, Jewish Insider’s senior political correspondent, criticized CBS for its alleged double standards.
‘It violates CBS standards for Tony Dokoupil to ask Ta-Nehisi Coates tough questions about his anti-Israel speech, but apparently it was totally fine for Gayle King to make accusations against a hostage’s father, who said nothing derogatory about Palestinians, for true,’ he wrote in X.
Your publication He received more than 100 responses, some of which accused King of being anti-Semitic.
‘They are immoral. ‘Who has the audacity to say this to the father of a hostage?’ one person wrote.
“She is a disgrace and should be fired,” wrote another.
“If they didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards,” said a third.
In the midst of all this, aaccording to a report in The free pressMark Memmott, senior director of standards and practices at CBS News, told all CBS News employees not to say that Jerusalem is in Israel.
He allegedly wrote in a note to thousands of CBS journalists: “Yes, the US embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as the capital of Israel.” But its status is disputed. The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to CBS News for comment.