Gayle King criticized CBS on Thursday for how it had promoted a recent interview that touched on Kobe Bryant, an unusual public rebuke from one of the most powerful figures in the network’s news division.

Ms. King, the lead anchor of “CBS This Morning,” made her frustrations known on Instagram early Thursday in response to a social media backlash over her interview with Lisa Leslie, a former star in the Women’s National Basketball Association and a longtime friend of Mr. Bryant’s.

To promote the five-and-a-half-minute interview, CBS used a 94-second video clip in which Ms. King asked Ms. Leslie about a woman’s 2003 sexual assault accusation against Mr. Bryant, who died last month in a helicopter crash.

“I know that if I had only seen the clip that you saw, I’d be extremely angry with me, too,” Ms. King said in the video she posted on Instagram.