Gayle King got away with grilling the father of a child hostage despite CBS bosses condemning her Jewish co-host for challenging an anti-Israel author.
A resurfaced clip of King, 69, interviewing Thomas Hand in November 2023 about the kidnap of his eight year-old daughter Emily has sparked allegations of a CBS double standard.
The clip saw King ask Hand: ‘Now this seems to be all about politics. What do you say about that? You know, you have innocent children and Palestinians who are dying, innocent Israeli children who are dying. And no one seems to be able to say “Enough, stop that.”‘
Hand laughed nervously and answered: ‘I’m not interested in politics at all. My only concern is getting Emily back.’
Emily was returned safely to her family a few weeks later, 50 days after being abducted during the October 7 massacre.
But King’s tough line of questioning – which was backed by her CBS Mornings bosses – sparked allegations of hypocrisy after colleague Tony Dokoupil challenged anti-Israel author Ta-Neshi Coates about his views last week.
Coates has claimed King told him backstage what she planned to ask him during the same interview, leading to allegations of journalistic malfeasance.
Thomas Hand, left, appeared on CBS Mornings with Gayle King, right, and Tony Dokoupil in November 2023 after his daughter Emily was kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attacks
Pictured: Emily Hand, 9, spent her ninth birthday in the Hamas tunnels in Gaza
Dokupil was subsequently found to have breached rules by the network’s DEI-focused Race and Culture Unit in a meeting leaked to The Free Press.
Jewish journalist Lahav Harkov said of King’s chat with Hand: ‘It violates CBS standards for Tony Dokoupil to ask Ta-Nehisi Coates tough questions about his anti-Israel screed but apparently it was totally fine for Gayle King to make accusations to the father of a hostage — who said nothing derogatory about Palestinians, btw.’
Scott Oliphant replied: ‘They are immoral. Who has the audacity to say this to a father of a hostage’
And a tweeter called PythonFive agreed there was a double standard, writing: ‘If they didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.’
The question came after Hand explained that all Israel got for pulling out of Gaza in September 2005 were the terrorist attacks on October 7 that killed some 1,200 people.
‘[Israel is] a difficult place to live, we’re constantly being bombarded by 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 movement towards peace that Israel ever did was we pulled out of Gaza. Israel has never made such a big step towards peace. And it got us nothing. They didn’t even make a little baby step back to go towards peace.’
In response, King asked Hand to talk about the politics of the war between Hamas and Israel.
‘I’m 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 his daughter on November 26 after she and other hostages were released by Hamas
Emily, a dual Irish-Israeli citizen, was released by Hamas on November 26 and had a touching reunification with her father.
The clip of this tense back-and-forth resurfacing comes after Dokoupil was reportedly criticized by CBS News executives for his tough questioning of Coates about his apparent antipathy toward Israel.
Coates was on the show promoting his book The Message, which Dokoupil said ‘would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist’.
He then grilled Coates about his views, but their chat was professional and polite.
Dokoupil was praised by many for his robust questioning – although others criticized him for not declaring that his ex-wife and children live in Israel.
CBS News reportedly condemned Dokoupil for failing to meet its ‘standards.’
Coates defended Dokoupil, who is Jewish, but later said King allegedly told him backstage what she was going to ask him.
If she did, in fact, feed Coates specific lines of questioning, King would have violated the network’s journalistic standards, a former CBS reporter told The Free Press.
A morning show segment between Tony Dokoupil (right) and author Ta-Nehisi Coates (left) sparked outrage over the anchor’s aggressive questioning last week
Amid all this, according to a report in The Free Press, Mark Memmott, the senior director of standards and practices at CBS News, told all CBS News employees not to say Jerusalem is in Israel.
He allegedly wrote in a note to thousands of CBS journalists: ‘Yes, the U.S. embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as being Israel’s capital. But its status is disputed. The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’
DailyMail.com approached CBS News for comment.
