Gayle King's headline-making R. Kelly interview proves she's the most important star at CBS News

The Daily Beast

Page Six reports King wants “George Stephanopoulos money” -- $15 million to $18 million a year -- to stay at CBS This Morning and CBS News. King's contract, which reportedly pays her $5.5 million a year, expires at the end of 2019. As The Daily Beast point out, King generated her own headlines from R. Kelly's explosive interview. "Thanks to her composure in the face of Kelly's volcanic, threatening anger, co-anchor Gayle King is having nothing short of an iconic moment—the pinnacle of a sustained sequence of triumphs that has cemented her transformation from journeyman television personality into irreplaceable network star," says The Daily Beast, adding: "A lucrative new deal would be long-awaited recompense for a 64-year-old working mom who spent decades toiling in the wilderness of local TV (where she met her best friend Oprah Winfrey when both were starting out at a station in Baltimore) and only relatively recently has come into her own as an indispensable franchise player when many such careers are heading into the sunset." As an anonymous longtime colleague explains: “Gayle is the most important talent at CBS News, both internally for morale and externally, hands down."

ALSO:

• Gayle King delivered a master class in de-escalation and dogged journalism
• CBS News photographer Lazarus Jean-Baptiste's photograph of the interview has been compared to a Renaissance painting