CBS News calls out ‘DEI expert’ who mocked black senator as ‘Uncle Tim’ after Tony Dokoupil scandal

CBS News’ new DEI consultant may need to get some racial sensitivity training.

It is said that the leaders of the network intercepted Dr. Donald Grant – who calls himself a “mental health expert, DEI strategist and trauma trainer” on his Instagram – to quell the internal turmoil after they claimed that an interview between breakfast show host Tony Dokoupil and author Ta- Nehisi Coates was not up to “editorial standards”.

But CBS may want to reconsider its choice of broker.

Apparently MAGA-hating Grant, who is black, posted an altered cover of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin – featuring the face of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott , supporting Donald Trump, photoshopped over the images of several other characters.

The post on Grant’s Instagram account, which he set up earlier this year, changed the caption to “Uncle Tim’s Cabin” and also included an image of conservative commentator Candace Owens.

A source close to the situation called CBS News’ move “idiotic” and noted the irony that the Tiffany Network would hire someone who is “insanely racist.”

CBS News did not comment on its decision to tap Grant, which was first reported by Puck News.

Scott immediately jumped on the controversial decision to bring in Grant, reposting his altered book cover on the Win Red fundraising platform late Monday.

“The disgusting rhetoric above is exactly what awaits us if we allow the Radical and Intolerant Left to win,” Scott wrote.

“If you believe in a stronger America, if you believe that we are better together than apart, then I’m counting on you to stand with me now!”

Earlier in the day, the network sparked controversy among CBS News staffers after calling out Dokoupil for pressuring Coates about the pro-Palestinian framing of the controversial author of Hamas’s war with Israel during last week’s “CBS Mornings” interview.

CBS News chief Wendy McMahon and Adrienne Roark, president of content development for the news division, claimed the “CBS Mornings” host brought up his bias in the Coates interview during the October one-year anniversary staff meeting. 7 massacres, according to multiple reports.

They said the cut, made last week, did not meet editorial standards for impartiality — though they declined to provide any details, Bari Weiss’ Puck News and Free Press reported.

“We will still hold people accountable. But we’re going to do it objectively, which means checking our biases and opinions at the door,” Roark said, according to media reports. “We’re here to report the news without fear or favor.”

The harsh criticism did not go down well with some Dokoupil supporters, including CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford.

“I don’t even understand how Tony’s interview failed to meet our editorial standards… I thought our commitment was to the truth,” Crawford was quoted as saying by Puck.

“When someone comes on our broadcast with a one-sided account of a very complex situation – which Coates himself admits he has – I understand that as journalists we have an obligation to challenge that worldview so that our viewers have access to the truth and there may be a more balanced account.”

Critics on social media and CBS staff criticized Dokoupil’s direct questioning of Coates’ book “The Message,” in which he condemned what he called Israeli “apartheid” administration of territories occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War. .

Dokoupil, a convert to Judaism whose ex-wife lives in Israel with their two children, took issue with Coates, saying the book “wouldn’t be out of place in an extremist’s backpack” for because of the characterization of Israel.

Dokoupil asked Coates why he didn’t include more pro-Israel voices or note in his work that “little children [were] blown to pieces” in Palestinian terror attacks.

“Is it because you simply don’t believe that Israel, under any circumstances, has a right to exist?” Dokoupil asked.

Coates responded that the Israeli narrative was well represented in the mainstream American press and that few Palestinian voices were being heard.

“I wrote a 260-page book,” Coates said. “It’s not a treatise on the entirety of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis,” Coates said, acknowledging that the account was based on his 10-day trip to Israel and the Palestinian West Bank.

Crawford praised Dokoupil for “the challenge[ing] Coates’ one-sided worldview” and then giving the author a chance to respond.

“It was civil … I don’t see how we can say it failed to meet our editorial standards,” Crawford is reported to have said.

She added that Dokoupil “prevented the broadcast on our network of a one-sided account of a deeply complex situation that was completely devoid of history or facts. “As journalists, that’s what we have an obligation to do.”