Farewell to "60 Minutes:" It just went the way of the Washington Post's editorial page - by Robert Reich

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Sometimes leftist mouthpieces like Dr. Reich are so over-the-top with irony it's a wonder they can keep a straight face. Every single accusation Dr. Reich raises against Trump and the political right exactly matches what the Right has been complaining about what the Left have themselves been actually perpetrating for decades. Every single concern he raises is something the Right has already raised about the Left. 

Every single encroachment on freedom. Every single expansion of government power. The specter of using the government against one's political enemies.

All of it. 

The Left has been doing it. With impunity. For years, if not decades.

So when we read something like the article below, we can scarce believe our eyes. 

We've seen these words before, uttered by ourselves. With a brazenness seldom seen, Dr. Reich simply appropriates the Right's complaints against the Left and reverses them. He's not even particularly creative about it. 

Astonishing.

We do have a bit of solace, however. The worries of the Right now are the worries of the Left. They now know how we've felt for decades. 

Good.

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Friends,

Once you begin surrendering to Trump, he always wants more. You can’t appease a tyrant.

David Ellison’s CBS — after gutting DEI policies there, appointing right-wing hack Kenneth R. Weinstein to a new “ombudsman” role, and making anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News (despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or newsrooms) — yesterday removed a segment from “60 Minutes” featuring stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador. Bari Weiss had demanded changes to the segment. (Yes, yes, yes, we already agree. You can stop trying to convince us...)

The Ellisons — fils et père — have been seeking Trump’s support for their hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, but Trump has been unhappy with recent episodes of “60 Minutes,” even under its new management. Hence, the segment’s removal.

Sharyn Alfonsi, a long-standing “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment that was removed, accused CBS News of pulling it for “political” reasons. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” she wrote in a note to the CBS News Team. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.” (Hmm. The story was cleared by all the same apparatuses as what previously yielded the same sort of result.

The biased legacy media, so accustomed to pushing their world view upon their viewers, is astonished to discover that their B.S. no longer passes muster.)

Here’s Alfonsi’s note in full:

News Team,

Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.

I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.

Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.

We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.

If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient.

If the standard for airing a story becomes “the government must agree to be interviewed,” then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.

These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.

CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that “low point.” By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.

We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of “Gold Standard” reputation for a single week of political quiet.

I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.

Sharyn

(Payback is a bitch. Better get used to it.)

Sharyn Alfonsi wins this week’s Joseph N. Welch Award for courage in the face of tyranny (named for the chief counsel for the U.S. Army who confronted Senator Joe McCarthy with the iconic question, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" which led to McCarthy’s demise). (Gratuitous mention of an ancient controversy, done for no other reason that to suggest that the "noble" work of the 1950s is analogous to what CBS is doing today.)

I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. (...with an "R" after their name...)

But that was when CBS News — the home of Edward R. Murrow (who also revealed to America the danger of Joe McCarthy) (Again! Once wasn't enough.)

and Walter Cronkite — was independent of the rest of CBS. And when the top management of CBS felt they had independent responsibilities to the American public. (The reader can probably see more clearly how Dr. Reich is trying to manipulate the issue. The great reporters of 75 years ago are just like today's CBS reporters, you see. If you opposes 60 Minutes you are opposing the besainted Murrow and Cronkite.

Yes. Those were the days. Back when there was no one to challenge them or disagree. They had free reign, which is why they so chaffe when called to account these days. 

The great diversity of perspective available nowadays has all but destroyed the mainstream news, and their response is to blame everyone but themselves.)

 
America can survive without a “60 Minutes” it can trust, just as we can survive without trustworthy editorial pages of the Washington Post. But at some point, as Trump continues to repress criticism of him and his regime, American democracy is compromised beyond repair.

We are coming to the end of only the first year of Trump II. He and the lapdogs and sycophants around him have done more damage to this nation in less than a year than I thought possible.

They have not been them alone in their destruction. They’ve had enablers in the form of billionaires such as Larry and David Ellison, along with quisling managers such as Bari Weiss, who confuse having money and power with possessing integrity and fostering the common good.