Steve Kroft's interview of Barack Obama was the focus of this past Sunday's episode of "60 Minutes" on CBS. It has become noteworthy primarily because of Obama's statement that U.S. intelligence agencies "underestimated what had been taking place in Syria." As several previous NewsBusters posts have shown (example here, here, here, and here), the press is working mightily to minimize how the intelligence community and the Pentagon are pushing back, hotly disputing the President's assertion.
Another noteworthy development is that the network's audience for the Obama interview was down 69 percent in the 18-49 demographic from the show's previous episode. The vast majority of press reports noting the ratings slide, as compiled by Kristinn Taylor over at Gateway Pundit, are not mentioning that it was Obama's show.
Taylor specifically cites Deadline Hollywood, Variety, the Los Angeles Times, Broadcasting and Cable, TV by the Numbers, and The Wrap as failing to identify Obama's presence on Sunday's show. A frequent excuse for the show's poor ratings was the absence of a lead-in NFL game. (This leads one to question if the show's higher ratings with football lead-ins might really be due to people just leaving the TV on while ignoring the show after the games end.)
The one exception Taylor found was at the Orlando Sentinel, whose Hal Boedecker reported: "And '60 Minutes' had 9.7 million for an interview with President Barack Obama" (Taylor's original has 9.2 million). Boedecker didn't identify the change form the previous week, but that treatment was consistent with the other programs he cited.
Apparently no one wants to imply that the nation seems to be largely tuning out what their President is saying. Does anyone think that there would be similar reluctance under a Republican or conservative president?
How much of the collective yawn is due to indifference versus hostility is an open question — but it's quite clear that many Democratic Party candidates on the fall ballot aren't interested in finding out the answer, and are avoiding being seen, associated with, or even mentioning Obama in their campaigns.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
