Dem
47
GOP
53
One of the primary jobs for the commissioners of the various sports leagues (particularly the NFL) is to be among the highest-paid heels in the world. They do and say the unpopular things that need to be done and said to advance the interests of the business, allowing the fat cats (the owners) to keep their hands basically clean.
It could not have been clearer that Bari Weiss was hired to perform a similar role at CBS. She does not have the qualifications to be running a major newsroom (or even a minor one). And her politics are too well known for her to be credible as a fair and impartial journalist or editor. However, she has enough of a "just calling balls and strikes" image (even if it's not justified) that the Ellison family, who are the new owners of CBS, are hopeful that she can do their partisan bidding and yet give everything a veneer of legitimacy. At very least, if the editorial decisions appear to be coming from her, then that is one step removed from the Ellisons, and two steps removed from their good buddy Donald Trump.
The Ellisons' investment paid dividends this weekend—sort of. The staff of 60 Minutes put together a 14-minute piece entitled "Inside CECOT," about the folks who were abruptly (and illegally) deported to El Salvador, and the conditions they faced there. Well aware of the current political context, the piece went through the usual editorial process five times, and was thoroughly vetted by CBS lawyers. A promo was posted on CBS' website. And then, about 2½ hours before it was set to air, the segment was dropped. The promo was replaced with this notice:
Maybe they will indeed show the segment on a future broadcast. Maybe that will be right after the episode where they report on the details of Donald Trump's plan to replace Obamacare. Or the episode where they cover the full, complete, and unredacted release of the Epstein files by the Department of Justice.
The last-minute decision was made, of course, by Weiss. Or, at very least, Weiss claims that she made the decision. She explained herself to staffers on a Monday morning conference call:
I held a 60 Minutes story because it was not ready. While the story presented powerful testimony of torture at CECOT, it did not advance the ball—the Times and other outlets have previously done similar work. The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment at this prison. To run a story on this subject two months later, we need to do more. And this is 60 Minutes. We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera.
Yes, what would a bunch of journalists know about what makes a good news story. Thank goodness there was an op-ed writer there to set them straight!
As readers can presumably tell from our sarcastic tone, Weiss' explanation does not pass the smell test. It is the height of ivory-tower elitism to claim that if the New York Times has covered a story, there's nothing more to be said. A Times story might reach a million people or so (10% of the subscriber base is a GREAT success); 60 Minutes averages 8 million viewers. And that is before we talk about the differences between reading a story (maybe with pictures) and seeing it in video form. Even if the 60 Minutes piece covered only well-worn territory (dubious), it did so in a different way, and for a different audience. It most certainly would have "advance(d) the ball."
It is also not remotely believable that the White House was not asked to comment, or to have someone sit for an interview. There is no doubt that if Donald Trump, or Steven Miller, or DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had been made available, the 60 Minutes staff would have been on that like white on rice. (Z) worked for a newspaper for many years, and the moment he heard Weiss' claims, he had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the White House refused requests for comment. It is Journalism 101 that you ask, and it is Journalism 101 that the answer is often "no." That is, itself, a form of comment (and keep reading).
Finally, 60 Minutes is CBS' flagship news program. In fact, it might be THE flagship news program of American television (the only real competitor, we would say, is Meet the Press). Was Weiss, the so-called editor-in-chief of CBS News, really in the dark about the rundown of this week's show until just a couple of hours before airtime? If so, she's incompetent. But if incompetence was all that was going on, then she probably wouldn't have known until after the broadcast. No, the timeline comports a lot better with something like this: Weiss learned of the story when the promo was uploaded to the website on Friday (if not before), she gave a heads-up to the Ellisons on Saturday, and the Ellisons ordered her to kill it. That is what we suspect really happened.
We are not the only ones who are not buying what Weiss is selling. The lead reporter on the CECOT piece is Sharyn Alfonsi, who sent out a memo to the 60 Minutes staff yesterday:
News Team,
Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.
I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now—after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.
We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.
If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient.
If the standard for airing a story becomes "the government must agree to be interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.
These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.
CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.
We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet.
I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.
Alfonsi clearly knows her stuff, and clearly has a steel spine. Whether she will still have a job a week from now is a different question.
Meanwhile, note again what we wrote at the top of this item: "The Ellisons' investment paid dividends this weekend—sort of." It is true that the story was killed, and may well never reach CBS' airwaves, at least in the United States. However, nobody believes Weiss is calling journalistic balls and strikes, and the credibility of 60 Minutes and of CBS News has taken a giant hit, from which it will certainly not recover as long as she's on the payroll. If the goal is to create a mainstream propaganda operation—a highly dubious proposition—then that effort is clearly failing.
On top of that, we continue to marvel that nobody in these right-wing circles seems to have heard of the Streisand Effect. Heck, at least three decades before there was a Streisand Effect, the Ronald Reagan administration knew that when 60 Minutes was going to do a critical piece, the best thing to do was to make sure it included some footage of Reagan looking dapper, to let the piece run, and then to wait for any negative effects to dissipate, which they tended to do quickly. Now, not only have Weiss and the Ellisons dealt a massive blow to their right-wing media project, they've also given this story vastly more exposure that it otherwise would have gotten, since every outlet is now writing about both CECOT and Weiss' lack of scruples. And it's not like they were even able to completely slay the segment. It ran on CBS outlets in Canada and in other nations, and can easily be found on multiple platforms.
In short, the Fourth Estate is more resilient than the Ellisons, and their highly paid ventriloquist dummy, realized. Maybe if the Ellison family had hired an actual journalist to be their lapdog, they would have gotten at least slightly better results. But probably not. (Z)