60 Minutes

The New York Times published an unintentionally humorous headline on December 23:  “When ‘60 Minutes’ Checks Its Journalistic Skepticism at the Door.” Times media columnist David Carr is suddenly stunned that “60 Minutes” has aired a puff piece on a serious political matter.         In his article, Carr didn’t breathe a word about Steve Kroft’s long history of servile interviews with Barack…

Former CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather, despite being fired as a result of the bogus story, continues to maintain that he got it right in September 2004 when he aired forged documents concerning George W. Bush’s record with the Air National Guard. On CNN’s Piers Morgan Live Monday, Rather said, “No question the story was true” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Sunday's 60 Minutes, CBS's Steve Kroft boosted the agenda of Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-identified socialist, by granting him 30 seconds of air time to attack billionaire Pete Peterson, who was featured on the November 17, 2013 edition of the news program. However, this half-minute block was 2.5 times the amount that Peterson got during Charlie Rose's report [MP3 audio available here;…

On the Monday, November 11, All In with Chris Hayes show on MSNBC, host Hayes fretted about CBS News correspondent Lara Logan being biased in favor of military action against terrorists. He also theorized that her retraction for using a dishonest source in her Benghazi piece "would be a huge story" if a conservative was being criticized, as he alluded to Dan Rather's story about former…

Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal and the NSA snooping have all failed thus far to cause the liberal mainstream media to break away from their instinctive partisan-protect mode into a cover regardless of political implication mode. The betting here is that team Obama is counting on the liberal media giving them the breathing room they need to get things straightened out  [on…

On Sunday's 60 Minutes, CBS's Lara Logan bluntly pointed out how the September 11, 2012 Islamist attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya "have been overshadowed by misinformation, confusion, and intense partisanship". Logan turned to an actual eyewitness of the attack, along with two former advisers to deceased Ambassador Chris Stevens – Greg Hicks and a Green Beret officer – to…

As timing would have it, my 12-year-old daughter read Orwell's "Animal Farm" for school just before I encountered an eerily similar human version of one of its characters. Do you remember Squealer, the propagandist for the pigs who ran the farm after the animals seized control of the property? He was described as "a brilliant talker" who when arguing "had a way of skipping from side to side…

A pro-Israel media watchdog accused "60 Minutes" of anti-Semitism at CBS's shareholders meeting Thursday. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the complaint stemmed from a segment aired April 22, 2012, called "Christians of the Holy Land" (video follows with partial transcript and commentary).

Scott Pelley deserves grudging credit for recognizing something obvious at a Friday luncheon in New York. Readers tempted to go beyond that point would be advised to visit the archive of Pelley-related posts at NewsBusters on his brand of so-called journalism, a few of which will be identified later in this post. At said luncheon, Pelley received the 20th annual Fred Friendly First Amendment…

CBS’s Lesley Stahl made a comment Sunday that in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing might give many Americans chills. During a discussion about that horrific event on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Stahl said, “We're all going to end up wearing burqas” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The Twitter accounts of CBS's 60 Minutes and 48 Hours have been hacked and suspended. According to the Hollywood Reporter, before the suspension, anti-Obama messages were sent:

On Sunday's 60 Minutes, CBS ran to the aid of dissident Catholic sisters in the U.S. and recycled many of its talking points from their sympathetic coverage of the sisters' "Nuns on the Bus" tour in 2012. Bob Simon trumpeted the supposed "rock star" status of the leader of the sisters' coalition and tossed mostly softball questions at her. He also repeatedly used the loaded term "Inquisition"…

Being that March is Women’s History Month and March 8 is International Women’s Day, what better time to showcase a prominent female journalist being treated poorly by her male colleagues, particularly ones from the "war on women" network itself, MSNBC. Speaking with the liberal Huffington Post, CBS This Morning co-host Norah O’Donnell describes a not-so-pleasant experience with former NBC…

In the days of the late Mike Wallace, "60 Minutes" was known for hard-hitting, aggressive journalism that asked the questions viewers wanted answered and held the powerful accountable. The Jan. 27 program on which Steve Kroft interviewed President Obama (at his request, no less) and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fell far short of that high standard. It was the kind of softball…