Shari Redstone, the chairwoman and CEO of CBS’ parent company Paramount Global, said Wednesday that CBS leadership made a “bad mistake” in how they handled the fallout over “CBS Mornings” co-anchor Tony Dokoupil’s contentious last week interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Paramount Global co-CEO George Cheeks released a memo to staffers this afternoon, defending top CBS News executives for calling out the way that CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokuopil handled an interview last week with author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

During an interview on “CBS Mornings” to promote his new book, Coates faced fierce questioning — and accusations of extremism — from co-host Tony Dokoupil.

Paramount Global's non-executive chair Shari Redstone publicly broke with the CBS News management team over its handling of a controversial interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates about Israel that has roiled the newsroom.

Looks like the boss had your back. Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global, in some of her last days in that role, reprimanded executives at CBS News for telling staffers earlier this week that a sharp exchange on “CBS Mornings” between Dokoupil and author Ta-Nehisi Coates about his

CBS News executives had said that Tony Dokoupil’s interview with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates fell short of editorial standards.

CBS management took the unusual step of scolding Dokoupil before his colleagues for not living up to network standards.