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More Than '60 Minutes,' CBS News Is Having a Horrendous Week

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Oct 10, 2024
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Stealth Story Evolution – CBS NEWS

  • What class in J-School told you this was acceptable?!

This has been a horrendous week for CBS News. Kamala Harris sat for the presidential candidate interview and came off even worse than expected. When the teaser clips of her discussion came out, she looked bad, and people wondered – in an edited interview – just how bad the portions were that had been cut from the interview.

Then when the broadcast came out, it was noticed that the responses on screen did not match those segments released in the morning. The production actually re-edited her interview and replaced her meandering answer to a question with a response to a prior query.

Stephen Miller has lined up the two versions in order to show where the manipulation was done by CBS News.

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Race to the Bottom – CBS NEWS

  • In reading this correctly, this is not an editorial issue...

In other dysfunctional news at CBS, the ongoing internal melodrama involving the interview conducted by Tony Dokoupil continues. To put things in perspective, when Gayle King interviewed the parents of an Israeli hostage held by Hamas and admonished them about considering the plight of Palestinians, there was not a revolt among the staffers.

It was said that Dokoupil violated CBS' journalism policy, but now, it looks vastly different. In a released memo, it appears what angered the network over the somewhat contentious interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates was not so much that he deviated from the approved Q&A script but that his line of questioning angered the CBS Race And Culture Unit.

This means that what led to the ongoing internal staff strife (and required a since-canceled meeting with a trauma-sensitivity doctor), was not an editorial ethics problem but that he violated the DEI office at CBS News.

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – CBS NEWS

In a related instance that reveals a level of hostility toward the nation of Israel at CBS News, another memorandum was circulated, at least a month ago, showing the intolerance. While there remains an ongoing conflict with Palestinians over the sanctity of Jerusalem and which side can rightfully claim it as its capital, there are certain realities in play that seem to bother the network. Its director of standards and practices has instructed their journalists on how to describe the contested city:

Yes, the U.S. embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as being Israel’s capital. But its status is disputed. Do not refer to it as being in Israel.

Disputes aside, the city is still located within Israel – but it seems geopolitical feuds somehow supersede geographical certainty.

Reporting on the Mirror – WASHINGTON POST

In the wake of Taylor Lorenz departing the Washington Post, all we can say about this new revelation is – we called it! When she announced she was breaking away to begin a solo subscription venture, we speculated that this may have been a forced exit by the paper and that it was possibly provoked by the social media post where Lorenz was at a White House function and had a caption calling Joe Biden a "War Criminal."

Now, some staff from the Post have come out today to say that this was in fact the impetus for her departure – that she claimed to have not made the caption and not shared the post online. After the revelation of the photo last August, Lorenz had not had anything published at the Post and an internal review of the episode had been conducted.

Democratic Custodial Services – NBC NEWS

A story broke this Monday by NBC News stating that Kamala Harris had been rudely brushed off by Ron DeSantis when she allegedly called him regarding hurricane preparation. DeSantis has steadfastly stated she never contacted him or his office, and he underscored this by noting that during her entire tenure as vice president, she has never previously reached out to the state.

But all of this was overshadowed by Joe Biden being asked of this conflict directly, and he plainly stated that he has personally been in constant contact with the Florida governor, effectively backing the Greyhound over Kamala so she could inspect the undercarriage.

But now, NBC has come out with a face-saving report (for Harris and the network) which states Biden had not been fully apprised of the phone calls, so he was not actually undercutting Kamala. This pathetic spin comes courtesy of an anonymous source:

Biden hadn’t been briefed about the dynamic involving Harris and DeSantis, the person familiar with the situation said. “He wasn’t tracking a specific back-and-forth,” the source said, adding that Biden was “focused on the response itself.” The person was granted anonymity to speak freely about the matter.