Until the day he retired, my parents revered CBS News’s Walter Cronkite. Combining dignity with a gentle flow of compassion and wisdom, and always with a warm twinkle in his eye, he informed Americans about events worldwide. Then he concluded the show by saying, “And that’s the way it is.” They told me how they wept with him when President Kennedy died, and they believed him when he lied about the U.S. victory in the Tet Offensive, a lie that effectively lost the Vietnam War for America. In those days, CBS News had gravitas, and no viewer knew or understood that the outlet was pushing propaganda along with its straight news reporting.

When “Uncle Walter” retired, Dan Rather took his seat. Although less graceful than Cronkite, Rather went through the motions with seeming objectivity. In 2004, when he was caught pushing a blatant lie about George W. Bush’s National Guard service, CBS fired several staffers and let Rather’s contract lapse. The outlet couldn’t risk its reputation for journalistic integrity, no matter how badly deserved.

Image: YouTube screen grab.

That was then. With Donald Trump’s appearance on the political scene in 2015, when he dared to challenge Hillary’s imminent coronation and then proceeded to win, the American media redefined journalistic integrity. Indeed, the New York Times explicitly said that Donald Trump, who promised to—and did—govern in line with American politics before 2000, was such an existential threat that journalistic objectivity was tantamount to treason.

Still, despite knowing what was going on before Trump and seeing what’s been happening since Trump, the latest CBS News stance about what constitutes journalism is something of a shock.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s claim to fame is that he insists that blacks in America are among the world’s most abused people, victims of a vast “white-wing” (my word) conspiracy, and entitled to scads of money and preferential treatment to compensate for America’s endless sins.

Naturally, because Coates is a communist, he despises Jews and, therefore, the world’s only tiny Jewish nation. As an aside, there are lots of reasons that communists despise Jews, not the least of which is that Karl Marx, a self-loathing Jewish convert, built antisemitism into communism. I also believe that leftists cannot bear the thought of a moral God before whom they’ll one day be called to account. The essence of communism is that they are the gods, and they will not accept competition. Jews, by their very existence, remind communists that they’re probably wrong.

Given Coates’s attitudes, it’s no surprise that his latest book, The Message, includes a virulent attack on Israel and a paean to the Muslim death cults surrounding Israel on all sides.

The book is also a vicious lie, and I know this because Coates said, “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel.”

Israel, which is home to Jews ranging from lily-white Ashkenazi to the brown-skinned Sephardim and Mizrahi and black Ethiopians, as well as myriad Druze, Arabs, Filipinos, and East Asian Indians, is the most multi-racial society in the Middle East. As Coates himself demonstrates, there will always be haters, but his lie about the Jews is the product of his own toxic mind.

Last week, Coates appeared on the CBS Morning News show, an appearance that Coates clearly expected would be the usual loving tongue bath of an “interview,” one that would not challenge his views. He was surprised (and unprepared) when Tony Dokoupil actually pressed Coates to defend those views about Israel:

Some might consider that real journalism and a cause for network pride. However, journalism has no place at CBS News. Instead, there was an uproar, with Dokoupil being chastised for racism:

CBS News on Monday rebuked one of its star morning anchors, Tony Dokoupil, over an interview that he conducted last week with the author Ta-Nehisi Coates, in which Mr. Dokoupil challenged Mr. Coates’s views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Top CBS executives, on a newsroom-wide call, described the interview as falling short of the network’s editorial standards. The executives said their critique had been prompted by internal staff concerns...

Following the chastisement, of course, there came the ritual Maoist struggle session. As you read the following paragraph, I challenge you to figure out whether you’re living in America or Mao’s China:

Mr. Dokoupil met for an hour with members of the CBS News standards and practices team and the in-house Race and Culture Unit, which advises on “context, tone and intention” of news programming. The conversation focused on Mr. Dokoupil’s tone of voice, phrasing and body language during his interview with Mr. Coates, one of the people said.

The Free Press obtained audio of the editorial meeting amongst the top brass, during which they congratulated themselves on their journalistic courage while delicately arguing for censorship of anything that offends DEI sensibilities. Only one reporter, Jan Crawford, had the courage to challenge the attack on actual journalism:

“It sounds like we are calling out one of our anchors in a somewhat public setting on this call for failing to meet editorial standards for, I’m not even sure what,” she said. “I thought our commitment was to truth. And when someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account, a more balanced account. And, to me, that is what Tony did.”

Crawford went on: “Tony prevented a one-sided account from being broadcast on our network that was completely devoid of history or facts. As someone who does a lot of interviews, I’m not sure now how to proceed in challenging viewpoints that are obviously one-sided and devoid of fact and history.”

But the obeisance to DEI didn’t stop there. Sensing dissent in the newsroom, CBS News called in an expert to facilitate discussions...a DEI expert. That would be Dr. Donald Grant, whose website explains that

Dr. Donald E Grant Jr. is a trusted thought partner to teams and organizations across the globe. He holds a Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology, a Bachelors degree in Biology  and  a  Diversity, Equity & Inclusion certificate for practitioners.

He is an international workshop facilitator, film/TV consultant and published author Dr. Grant can be seen across national media outlets as a mental health expert, master facilitator and analyst of socio-cultural events.

(UPDATE: CBS subsequently canceled the Grant mediation session, but it is still illuminating to read about him.)

He’s been brought in to “help” by a laundry list of famous and influential organizations, including the LA Dodgers, Viacom, Paramount, Nickelodeon (which captures our children), and the University of Buffalo Medical School (so you don’t want a doctor who went there).

Grant is not ecumenical about race. He does not believe in a color-blind society, nor does he believe that there’s a virtue to blacks and whites coming together to solve societal problems, especially not if they believe in traditional Biblical and constitutional values. How do I know this? I only need to look at his vicious racial attack on Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC):

It may surprise you that I appreciate what’s happening at CBS News. When I grew up, CBS News was every bit as much a propaganda organization, but we didn’t know because it disguised itself so well. Now we know, and it’s so much easier to fight a seen rather than an unseen ideological foe.

(You may also enjoy this post about Trump showing wisdom when he avoided appearing on 60 Minutes.)