When it comes to CBS Sunday Morning‘s interview with Bill Belichick this week, there has been plenty of criticism. Very little of it, however, has been directed toward the interviewer, Tony Dokoupil.
That changed on Thursday as Dan Le Batard discussed the viral interview with Pablo Torre on The Dan Le Batard Show wit Stugotz. While playing multiple clips from the segment, Le Batard poked fun at Dokoupil’s “overly cheesy” broadcaster voice before questioning the journalist’s objectivity — or lack thereof — with regard to the 73-year-old Belichick’s relationship with his 24-year-old girlfriend, Jordon Hudson.
“Do you hear the question mark in this journalist in this saying that would express to you that the particular journalist we’re talking about is not objective?” Le Batard said before playing a clip in which Dokoupil noted Bill Belichick referring to Hudson as his “creative muse” in the acknowledgements of his upcoming book. “There’s some sass in there. Like he’s really judging it for America.”
Torre concurred.
“You can’t see it, but [Dokoupil’s] clearly doing scare quotes [around ‘creative muse’],” Torre replied. “Like that is the verbal expression of scare quotes.”
“He’s also wagging a condescending chin at them,” Le Batard added.
“Perhaps a cocked eyebrow as well,” Torre said. “Yeah, all of those things are happening.”
Lack of objectivity or not, the CBS Sunday Morning segment has since taken on a life of its own as it featured a clip of Hudson interrupting the interview to shut down a question about how she and Belichick first met. TMZ later reported that Hudson interfered in the interview on multiple occasions and became so heated at one point that she stormed off the set, delaying production by approximately 30 minutes.
The ensuing days saw Bill Belichick release a statement defending his girlfriend’s actions, stating that the former Bridgewater State cheerleader was merely “doing her job to ensure the interview remained on track.” Meanwhile, CBS News released its own statement, denying the 6-time Super Bowl champion head coach’s claim that the interview was “selectively edited” and that the two sides had agreed to only focus on his upcoming book.
At this point, plenty of questions remain, especially with regard to the extent of Hudson’s involvement within the North Carolina program. Nonetheless, it was certainly refreshing to hear Le Batard and Torre take a different approach to the subject matter, while largely laughing at the absurdity of all of this.