Journalists Hit "60 Minutes" Stonewall

After last night's 90-second "apology" by Lara Logan on 60 Minutes--the show spent more time on photos of the Beatles with their wives and kids in 1964--it's certain that CBS wants to turn the page.  An insider even confirmed this was the case, according to the NYT.  No internal or independent probe.  No disciplining of reporter or producer.  Clearly CBS is terrified of where a probe might lead--for example, IDing why they did this story in the first place and didn't vet their source.  (See my piece at The Nation on the CBS News chief's background as honcho at Fox News throughout the Bush years--and Lara Logan revealing her own bias last year.)

Only a strong push from other journalists will push CBS to launch such an investigation and discipline staff and producer.   I'll log below what key journos are saying.  Many are making strong statements, although some are still giving CBS points for making any sort of limited apology--as if they could not do that after their source was thoroughly discredited.  Others are presuming--with no evidence that I've seen--that CBS will make a much longer statement later.

Jay Rosen:  "Two outstanding features of the 60 Minutes correction: written in the passive voice, edits out the role played by other news organizations."  Frank Rich:  "Failure of @ CBSNews to report how Lara Logan was duped for 'a year' (her claim) by a Benghazi hoax guarantees others will do it for them."  Dan Kennedy: "Pathetically inadequate."  Mike Signorile:  "60 Minutes 'apology' — or 'mistake,' as Logan put it— is pathetic. Needs full investigation, ramifications."  Gabriel Sherman: "A show w/ reporting legacy of 60 Minutes should have turned its reporting muscle back on itself to explain to viewers what happened, and why."  Roger Simon of Politico:  "60 Minutes needs to do an 'Anatomy of a Mistake' piece on its Benghazi story, not just a 'gee, we're sorry' mini-apology."

David Folkenflik of NPR "CBS gets points for a) apology b) not using own airwaves vs critics, as Rather did amid Bush memo fiasco. But concerns remain. CBS needs to offer transparent account of how the process went off the rails. Has not happened yet."  Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:  "I just watched the 60 Minutes "correction"/apology tonight and thought was pretty amazing for its brevity, lack of substance and general obfuscation... If you'd come to this 90 seconds without knowing anything that had happened over the last couple weeks, you would probably think that one person interviewed in a 60 Minutes segment may have been misleading in some of the things he said."  Michael Moore:  "You can tell the media is liberal by the way CBS fired Lara Logan but never did anything to Dan Rather."

Eric Boehlert:  "fact CBS won't open up shop to independent review just proves how terrified execs R of truth behind Benghazi fiasco coming out."  Will Bunch:  "So '60 Minutes' apology totally inadequate -- now what? We know CBS is terrified of right wingers...they need to be terrified of rest of us."  David Brock of Media Matters: “This evening's '60 Minutes' response was wholly inadequate and entirely self-serving. The network must come clean" and appoint independent panel to probe. Jeff Greenfield: "Will CBS investigate and make results public, as it and other nets did in past? So far this is a 'modified limited hangout.'" Blake Hounshell: "mistakes were made...."  Clara Jeffery, editor of Mother Jones:  "apology is weak. Not covered: promoting source pubbed by CBS imprint run by Mary Matalin. Or failure to check w/ FBI sources."


Craig Silverman of Regret the Error commented for the NYT:  “Aside from the fact that it struck a very passive tone and pushed the responsibility onto the source, Dylan Davies, it said nothing about how the show failed to properly vet the story of an admitted liar. There are basic questions left unanswered about how the program checked out what Davies told them, and where this process failed.  In the short term, this will confirm the worst suspicions of people who don’t trust CBS News.  In the long term, a lot will depend on how tough and transparent CBS can be in finding out how this happened — especially when there were not the kind of tight deadline pressures that sometimes result in errors.”  He also produced a valuable comparison of Dan Rather and Lara Logan "60 Minutes" scandals. 
Jay Rosen added a second comment at his blog:  "Attention now turns to Jeff Fager, as the person at CBS (executive producer of '60 Minutes’) who approved the final cut of a deeply flawed report starring a source CBS knew to have lied to his employer, and the executive at CBS, boss of the news division, who decided that it was time to move on from that mistake. Can that conflict of interest stand? So far it looks like it will."