'60 Minutes' must do more than apologize
By MARVIN KALB | 11/10/13 4:07 PM EST
“60 Minutes,” the storied CBS investigative news program, is still the gold standard of TV news magazines; but it goofed badly on a recent “exclusive” about the Benghazi tragedy, and it has apologized. Is that enough? What has CBS learned, if anything?
First, the goof: On Oct. 27, “60 Minutes” ran a politically hot story by reporter Lara Logan about the terrorist attack last year on the U.S. diplomatic mission in the Libyan port city of Benghazi. The highlight was an eyewitness account of a security contractor whose firm worked for the U.S. government. Dylan Davies, using the pseudonym Morgan Jones, gave Logan a vivid, blow-by-blow account of his role fighting the terrorists and later visiting a local hospital, where he saw the body of the slain U.S. ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens. Or so he claimed on “60 Minutes.”
This, by the way, is the same story he included in a new book, called The Embassy House, scheduled for publication by Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS’s parent corporation.
The only trouble with the Davies/Jones story was that it was not true. According to an account filed under his name to his contracting employer, Blue Mountain, shortly after the terrorist attack, he never saw the incident itself and he never visited the local hospital, because he did not leave his villa that night — it was too dangerous. He went there only the following morning. According to the New York Times, Davies/Jones had told the FBI the same story.
Yet “60 Minutes” broadcast his false rendition of reality, obviously satisfied that its principal source had been “vetted.” Jeff Fager, chair of CBS News, who routinely checks and double-checks every story on “60 Minutes,” originally said he was “proud of the reporting that went into the story.” “Everything checked out,” explained reporter Logan, who took it upon herself to “apologize” for CBS. “We were misled,” she told “CBS This Morning,” “and we were wrong.”
She promised other apologies, too, including one on Sunday’s edition of “60 Minutes.” “The most important thing now is that we own it: We made a mistake. We are sorry,” Fager told Variety’s Brian Steinberg.
Apologies are important, indeed potentially ground-shaking, especially at CBS, which remembers well the last time, in 2004, when it was trapped in a mistaken story about President George W. Bush’s military service and forced to drop anchor Dan Rather (never to return to CBS’s good graces), a leading producer and ultimately the president of the network. In this case, following the apologies, perhaps CBS (and other networks, too) will engage in a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred self-analysis of its reporting standards, starting one hopes with the unholy alliance it has formed with book publishers pushing their hot exclusives. Its deal with Davies/Jones, leading to its current embarrassment, is an excellent example of CBS not only rushing to judgment but also lending its somewhat tattered credibility to a false god of glory and ratings found in a Monday-morning headline.
The Benghazi story had an impact, no doubt. It made headlines, generated another round of talk-show palaver and even prompted some Republicans, such as South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham, to put a hold on confirmation hearings for Jeh Johnson, the nominee for homeland security secretary, and Janet L. Yellen, the nominee for head of the Federal Reserve System. Other Republicans seized on the “60 Minutes” story to call for new investigations of the Obama administration’s defense of its actions during the Benghazi attack. Will Senator Graham now apologize for jumping the gun on the Benghazi story and lift his hold on Obama’s two nominees? Tune in. In broadcasting, the story generally trumps the apology in impact and consequence.
CBS management might also use this humiliating moment to look once again at its “sourcing” policy. “60 Minutes” based its Benghazi story essentially on the word of one man.
It did of course examine congressional testimony and other reports, and Logan said she also had “access” to “communications” between Davies/Jones and the U.S. government. But anyone watching the “60 Minutes” piece had to conclude that Davies/Jones was her principal source, and some may even argue her only source. This is not sound policy.
CBS News remains an immensely important resource, but it has now suffered an avoidable setback at a time when all of the media is under a cloud of doubt and suspicion. The network must regain the credibility it lost in Benghazi. It can, but it will take time.
Marvin Kalb, a former CBS News correspondent, is senior adviser to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/cbs-60-minutes-benghazi-99638.html#ixzz2kNa5fGiw
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