CBS News president Susan Zirinsky is defending CBS anchor Gayle King, who has received death threats and plenty of criticism after asking about Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault charge in a recent interview, according to The Associated Press.
What happened with Gayle King?
- Gayle King recently interviewed WNBA legend Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant. King brought up the 2003 sexual assault charge, asking if the allegations tainted Leslie’s opinion of Bryant, who died in a tragic helicopter crash on Jan. 26 that killed nine people, including his daughter Gianna Bryant.
- Critics slammed King for bringing up the charges in the interview. Snoop Dawg reportedly issued a warning to King to not bring up Bryant’s past while the Bryant family grieves.
- King has reportedly received death threats, too.
So what did CBS President Susan Zirinsky say?
The CBS president told The Associated Press: “We fully support Gayle King and her integrity as a journalist. We find the threats against her or any journalist doing their job reprehensible.”
Gayle King criticized CBS at first, though.
Back when the clip of the interview first aired, King slammed CBS for showing it out of context, which I wrote about for the Deseret News.
- King: “I know that if I had only seen the clip that you saw, I would be extremely angry with me too. I am mortified. I’m embarrassed and I am very angry. Unbeknownst to me my network put up a clip from a very wide-ranging interview, totally taken out of context and when you see it that way it’s very jarring.”
- King: “It was wide-ranging. ... Yes, we talked about that court case because that court case has also come up. And I wanted to get Lisa’s take on it as a friend who knew him well.”
Oprah Winfrey said Gayle King wasn’t doing well
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Oprah Winfrey — a friend of King — said she wasn’t doing well over the controversy, according to the Deseret News.
- Winfrey: “She is not doing well. She is not doing well because she now has death threats and has to now travel with security. She is feeling very much attacked.”
- Winfrey: “She’s not doing well and feels that she was put in a really terrible position. Because that interview had already ran and in the context of the interview, everyone seemed fine, including Lisa Leslie.”