The reporter here is Jan Crawford, a veteran and old school journalist who has distinguished herself in other ways recently. She got some flack from conservatives over her observation that Joe Biden's manifest cognitive decline was a scandalously under-covered media story in 2024. She was right, of course, but some observers chalked up the criticism as 'too little, too late,' as it arrived safely after the election. But Crawford has a reputation for being a truth-teller, including when it might rankle colleagues at her controversy-plagued network. For example, after leftists within the CBS newsroom caused a big internal stir over an anchor asking entirely fair and appropriately pointed on-air questions of a virulent Israel critic, executives rushed to appease the mob. Crawford, however, stood up for her colleague, and for journalism. And said so openly:
During its editorial meeting on Monday at 9 a.m.—the morning of October 7—the network’s top brass all but apologized for the interview to staff, saying that it did not meet the company’s “editorial standards.” After being introduced by Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, Adrienne Roark, who is in charge of news gathering at the network, began her remarks by saying covering a story like October 7 “requires empathy, respect, and a commitment to truth.” ... Not everyone was buying it. CBS reporter Jan Crawford, who has been the CBS chief legal correspondent since 2009, rushed to Dokoupil’s defense. “It sounds like we are calling out one of our anchors in a somewhat public setting on this call for failing to meet editorial standards for, I’m not even sure what,” she said.
“I thought our commitment was to truth. And when someone comes on our air with a one-sided account of a very complex situation, as Coates himself acknowledges that he has, it’s my understanding that as journalists we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account, a more balanced account. And, to me, that is what Tony did.” Crawford went on: “Tony prevented a one-sided account from being broadcast on our network that was completely devoid of history or facts. As someone who does a lot of interviews, I’m not sure now how to proceed in challenging viewpoints that are obviously one-sided and devoid of fact and history.” ...An industry source said that Crawford has “balls of steel” and “is one of the most respected journalists at CBS.” He added: “It’s disgraceful that management chose not to answer her question in front of the whole group on the call.” But it should not take courage in an American newsroom to state what is obviously true.
Here's Crawford during that call this morning. (🔥) pic.twitter.com/TLyfHMKRFS
— Jim McCarthy (@JMacNYC) October 7, 2024
A fuller account of this contretemps is here. Good for her. Ditto for this comment, which caught the attention of Mollie Hemingway (who is currently working on a book about the Supreme Court):
WOW this is great. To the very end. Good for her. Good for her. https://t.co/0a9vLWCRmr
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) January 1, 2025
"You have got to look past just this past year and go further back. I think it really started and took off in the wake of the Dobbs decision, the court's ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. The outrage over that decision was so extreme that you saw, I think, a quite calculated effort to undermine legitimacy of the Supreme Court by Democrats, Senate Democrats, for example, hearings, stories about scandals, some of which were pretty overblown, to say the least. So, that has an impact on public opinion. The public starts to believe that this court is corrupt, that this is – it's on the take, none of which is true. I mean, this is still a court. You may disagree with their decisions. It's a very conservative court. It is not a corrupt court.
These are nine justices who have very different views on how to interpret the Constitution who are kind of in this Titanic struggle over law, not politics. Even the immunity decision, I mean, that decision was so misreported to say that the court was going to save Trump from a criminal trial. No, it wasn't. That was never the decision. In fact, that decision is going to help protect Joe Biden from any future prosecution by Donald Trump if he wanted to do that. So, when we look at public opinion polls, sure, the court's taken a hit, but that's true over the years. The court often takes a hit. So do other institutions. And the court's opinion – court's public opinion remains much higher than our other institutions, including the White House, Congress, and by far the news media."
One righteous truth bomb after another here, including a well-earned twist of the knife about SCOTUS being far more trusted than the 'news' media, as far as institutions go. As we've been covering for years, there has been a deeply mendacious assault on the Supreme Court by Democrats underway for years, driven by anger over outcomes they don't like. It's a disgrace, it's threatening to our constitutional system of checks and balances, and it's essential for honest media figures to call it out the way Crawford did here.
