Following protest among CBS newsroom staff over “CBS Mornings” host Tony Dokoupil’s hard-hitting interview of anti-Israel author Ta-Nahesi Coates on the anniversary of the October 7th massacre, CBS News President Wendy McMahon and Head of Newsgathering Adrienne Roark rebuked the pro-Israel host for his “context, tone & intonation” and had him meet with the network’s in-house “Race and Culture Unit.”
What was Dokoupil’s crime? He had pointed out that the views expressed by Coates were extreme and omitted the essential context of Israel being surrounded by enemies sworn to destroy the Jewish state.
By contrast, CBS News Desk Editor Emmet Lyons posted only glowing comments about the network’s anti-Israel, Gaza producer Marwan Al-Ghoul. Promoting Al-Ghoul’s coverage of the Gaza war, Lyons lauded him as an “extraordinary” producer, a “fantastic” reporter, and an “incredibly courageous” man.
CBS Evening News, on the same day (Oct. 8), featured a story by foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer heroizing the Gaza producer’s war coverage and gushing that “his resolve is simply astonishing.”
These CBS journalists were celebrating Al-Ghoul’s coverage, based on his own personal experiences as a Gaza resident during the Hamas-Israel war. The question is what do they, and the executives at CBS make of the CBS Gaza producer’s pre-existing racist and dehumanizing view of Jews?
In 2022, Marwan Al-Ghoul posted on social media that “34 years of news coverage can be summed up: “Are the Jews human like us?”
Another social media post “liked” by Al-Ghoul opined, “By no means do they [Jews] count as human, these are monsters in a human body.”
What does the CBS Race and Culture Unit make of Al-Ghoul’s “context, tone & intonation” in his comments about Jews? Do they meet the CBS race and culture expectations?
Do CBS news editors care at all that Al-Ghoul displays a menacing animus against both the Jewish state and the U.S.?
When the U.S. promised to move its embassy to Jerusalem and Hamas fired rockets, the Gaza producer slammed others outside Gaza for not joining Hamas in noble & “permanent resistance.”
He later contemplated in a social media post that “throughout the history of mankind, there have always been countries and empires that had a long life and empires that came to an end…America and Israel are heading toward their demise, but when?”
He “liked” a post threatening that Israeli Jews are “Nazi Zionist murderers whose crimes are silenced, covered for by the US and international complicity. The date of holding them accountable will reach them one day and our children do not forget.”
And he praised the murders of Israeli civilians Ziv Hajbi, 35, and Kim Yehezkel-Levengrond, 29, both parents of now-orphaned children, posting “The West Bank embraces Gaza, Blessed are the hands.”
Are Al-Ghoul’s celebration of terrorism and veiled threats against the US and Israel part of what CBS journalists have deemed “courage” and “resolve”?
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Fares Al -Ghoul, like his father, Marwan, is also employed by CBS — as a cameraman. He also follows his father in “context, tone and intonation.”
Below are just a few of numerous examples where the CBS cameraman celebrated the murders of Jews and their supporters or glorified the terrorist perpetrators.
Upon the detonation of an explosive device on a commuter bus in Tel Aviv, causing mass injuries:
Upon the Hamas rocket hits on Tel Aviv in 2012:
Upon the car ramming attack in Jerusalem that killed two people, including a 3-month-old girl:
Upon the murders of five people in Bnai Brak in 2022:
Upon a car-ramming and stabbing attack in Be’er Sheva that killed four and injured two:
Does CBS care at all about Jew-hatred? It is the Al-Ghoul story that is the one promoted and lauded by the CBS newsroom. It is their story that CBS News claims to “rely” on. That these lauded and relied-upon CBS journalists consider Jews less than human or celebrate their deaths does not seem to concern CBS news executives.
Marwan Al-Ghoul’s son, also gainfully employed by @CBSNews as a resolute cameraman, carries on the family tradition as a CBS beacon of race & culture sensitivity. Here’s Fares praising arch-terrorist Mohammed Deif (1/10) https://t.co/axrlEqiV3e pic.twitter.com/dYQLDjDAJN
— Tamar Sternthal (@TamarSternthal) October 14, 2024
Rebuke and forced meetings with the “Race and Culture Unit” of CBS seems to be reserved only for journalists who demand context and accountability from those intent on defaming the Jewish state, not for the defamers.
What does that say about CBS News?