Anyone else think the embarrassing apology ’60 Minutes’ issued on Sunday night would likely not have been necessary years ago when the highly-rated show had a cast of veteran editors/producers/reporters?
Don Hewitt was the show’s old school executive producer from 1960 to 2004 who helped establish journalistic credibility. He was gruff and demanded his reporters do their homework before anything aired.
Hewitt was a journalist and surrounded himself with journalists like Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Dan Rather and Andy Rooney.
Over time the show has been watered down to the point where Lara Logan was forced to apologize for an entire segment that aired October 27 where their source repeatedly lied about what occurred in Benghazi. Dylan Davies, a security contractor, claimed to have been a witness to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. It now appears he actually showed up the next morning after the attack.
“Logan’s apology, which echoed remarks she had made Friday on “CBS This Morning,” was an attempt to correct an error that has dogged “60 Minutes” and CBS News for more than two weeks now,” noted Politico. “But her apology offered little in the way of an explanation for the show’s error, which has become a black mark for a program that has long prided itself on the depth and thoroughness of its reporting.”
The real question Logan did not address is why ’60 Minutes’ failed to properly vet Davies before allowing him free air time to tell his story. The answer most likely is the book Davies was shilling was published by a division of CBS. Who was going to question the corporate bigwigs at your parent company when they tell you to interview one of their own authors?
“The question folks are asking is: Did anybody at ‘60 Minutes’ reach out to anybody outside of ‘60 Minutes’ to vet this guy. The answer is ‘no,’” one source with knowledge of the events told POLITICO on Friday.
At least Logan looks better on camera than the old credible journalists…
VIDEO DID IT!
Everyone knows that Benghazi was caused by a youtube video. Period.
CORRECTION
That should read “…from 1968 to 2004″. The show wasn’t on in 1960; it began in 1968.
At least she wasn’t like Dan Rather she did take the blame and not let her co-workers take the fall and get fired
PLANNED ERROR
Think about it. This fits in perfectly with the White House narrative of Benghazi being a “phony scandal”. If CBS cared about the story, they would have covered it when events happened, instead of waiting over a year while the Administration clearly lied about the facts. You remember, it was a response to a video as the President and Susan Wright repeatedly said. This is now a major story that now will not be covered in full as the result of this planned “error”.