The 60 Minutes Non-Retraction

I also posted this blog over at my IR blog, which exclusively focuses on international relations and related topics.

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After 60 Minutes announced they would apologize for their Benghazi story on Sunday, I eagerly anticipated a detailed, informative apology at the start of the show. Unfortunately, my expectations weren't realistic. What I got, after sitting through 56 of 60 minutes, was Lara Logan telling me she made a mistake. It was all over in less than two minutes. Logan had previously said the same thing on the CBS Evening News and CBS This Morning. Her 60 Minutes apology contained no new information for people who have been following the story.

For example, one would think it would be important to point out that Dylan Davies' book is published by Threshold, "a conservative imprint of Simon and Schuster," a subsidiary of, you guessed it, CBS News. And that said book just hit the shelves around the time the 60 Minutes report aired. The Huffington Post gives more detail regarding this point:

Did "60 Minutes" find Davies on its own, or did his book add an irresistible synergistic flavor to the show's Benghazi report? Did it face any internal pressure to help push for Davies' story to get on air?

Speaking on MSNBC last week, New York Times correspondent Bill Carter speculated that "60 Minutes" leapt to embrace the book because it needed a "new angle" for its Benghazi story.

I just don't think Logan's two-minute presentation was enough. It clearly didn't address the connection between 60 Minutes and the Davies' book, nor did it go into detail about how their key witness for their year-long Benghazi investigation was totally outed as a complete liar. This is a guy that started asking Fox News for money when they attempted to interview him. Fox News turned him down after that. On top of all this, it's Benghazi, a now highly politicized scandal, which the Republicans have pounced on as an integral part of their strategy to discredit Hillary Clinton as she moves toward the inevitable--her decision to run for president in 2016.

Benghazi is still a tragedy, even if 60 Minutes had done a full, in-depth retraction. However, I don't want the journalists I occasionally rely on to give me transparent, reliable reporting, to become what they are reporting on.

MSNBC, The Lumineers, and Mr. Potato...head?

Here are a few DU Debate Fest pictures from yesterday.

I'm not enforcing stereotypes here, but she was wearing an NRA hat.

Next door to the Romney table.

Mr. Potato Head....wait a minute.

Readying for Obama's arrival.

Secret Service and security taking some pictures before the Debate Fest gates open.

Martin Bashir broadcasting from DU, right in front of the Mary Reed Building.

Chris Matthews

More talking to cameras. I can't be the only one that always thinks of Bashir's interview with Michael Jackson when I see him. It's a classic. Here's the interview.

Let's play hardball!

The Lumineers put on an excellent show. 

A bass drum like the sun.

Mark Koebrich of 9News recording a segment during the Lumineers' concert.

America!

Londoners Read

Newspapers sometimes appear to be a dying species in America. The Internet has consumed ad revenue, much of which was traditionally the domain of newspapers, but not anymore. In addition, Americans don’t consume newspapers like they used to. It seems many have abandoned reading altogether. That may be true for some, but most are consuming their news in paragraphs instead of pages or whole newspapers. Mobile devices are now the source of most news, with their convenience and shortened web-version of articles. In fact, the longer version just doesn’t exist anymore. Now, the news needs to be reported at such a quick rate in order to be relevant that long-form journalism is hard to find. In a lot of cases, one has to wait for the Sunday newspaper to read an article that actually is thorough enough to be classified as reporting.

Often it just seems like newspapers are not going to last. I don’t see that many people reading them anymore. The rack of papers at Starbucks is full in the late afternoon. And I can get The New York Times for free every weekday on DU’s campus and I feel like I am one of the few students in my program who actually takes advantage of this.

That is why it is so refreshing to arrive in London and see people voraciously consuming the news in print. There are several major newspapers in London. I can think of The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Evening Standard, The Sun, and the free Metro just off the top of my head right now. I should add that the Standard is free as well.

The few times we were on the tube during rush hour, especially in the morning, everyone was reading something. It is just so great to see. Even if they were reading The Sun or a tabloid, I was happy for them, proud that there is a metropolis in which print is surviving. Even in the UK, despite their huge scandals in the last year concerning phone and email hacking, the paper industry is still significant enough to have several papers competing against each other, something you could only remotely say about these US cities: NYC, Chicago, D.C., and Los Angeles.

I brought home a copy of The Guardian (my favorite paper in the UK) and The Times. I will finish reading them cover to cover and then I probably won’t throw them away. I feel they are my best souvenirs from across the pond, where, as if under a wonderful spell, people still pay attention to original reporting. In stark contrast, the Huffington Post is popular in America. 

TPM - David Carr Interview

David Carr, journalist at the New York Times, was interviewed by TPM this week. I think Carr's take on journalism is a refreshing voice in the cacophony of talking heads on TV and the bad habit of news organizations to merely link to and summarize articles written by some other news organization. I'm looking at you, HuffPo. 


Good interview. Worth the read. Click it.