Key facts
- CBS News is facing internal backlash over its coverage of Muslim US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
- Staffers accuse the network of poor journalism and "overt" racism.
- The controversy stems from a story highlighting El-Sayed's deleted social media posts comparing the COVID-19 death toll to 9/11 victims.
- El-Sayed had written that "We could save lives rather than take them" in reference to the pandemic and 9/11.
- Reports suggest CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss personally directed the headline to explicitly reference 9/11.
- El-Sayed's Muslim and Arab identity has been a target of political opponents during his Senate campaign.
CBS News is facing internal backlash from current and former staffers who accuse the network of poor journalism and "overt" racism over its coverage of Muslim US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
The controversy ignited after CBS published a story highlighting old social media posts by El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, shortly before the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
El-Sayed, who could become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate, had previously deleted posts in which he compared the mounting COVID-19 death toll with the nearly 3,000 people killed on September 11, 2001. He also called for Washington to mobilize against poverty and the pandemic as it had after the attacks, writing, "We could save lives rather than take them." Another post mourned those killed on 9/11 as well as those killed in subsequent wars.
CBS framed these posts as potentially exposing El-Sayed to "renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack," while describing him as part of a political movement that "capitalised on anger over anti-Arab sentiment." Media newsletter Status reported that CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss personally pushed for the headline to explicitly reference 9/11. Senior staffers subsequently raised concerns with the network’s standards department.
One CBS staffer told Status that the network "took a small nugget of news, forced it into something much larger, and messed up." A former senior employee called the story "shameful" and added that "the racism is overt."
The CBS report follows months of hostile attacks on El-Sayed, whose Muslim and Arab identity has been invoked by political opponents. He overcame significant spending by an Aipac-linked super PAC during his primary. Following his victory, Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville stated Democrats had "voted to send a terrorist to the Senate" and called El-Sayed a "radical Islamist." Republican Representative Nancy Mace claimed that "every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse" and a threat to national security.
A source familiar with the editing process defended the report to the Daily Beast, stating CBS routinely covers politicians deleting old social media posts and that Weiss’s intervention improved the headline.