CBS News apologizes for misleading Benghazi story; book publisher yanks book at center of controversy
Simon & Schuster imprint Threshold Editions is yanking the book at the center of the CBS News/’60 Minutes’ Benghazi scandal, after CBS apologized for publishing falsehoods.
It’s good to finally see some accountability in the media for misleading the public about important issues, but this isn’t enough. The real scandal involving Benghazi has been the circus that Republicans have put on in the House of Representatives wasting time on frivolous investigative hearings. More money and time has been spent by the GOP trying put more of the blame for the attacks on the Obama administration than the terrorists who committed it.
CBS News would do well to start covering that instead of chasing conspiratorial fantasies. Producers might also think about doing a 60 Minutes episode on the failure of the American press to uncover even one percent of the controversial programs and behaviors of the National Security Agency before Edward Snowden dumped it all in their laps, to say nothing of the surveillance controversy itself which 60 Minutes has not covered this year.
60 Minutes hasn’t done a segment on a wave of new vote restriction laws, political gerrymandering keeping Republicans in power in the House illegitimately, nor has it said a word about the Affordable Care Act.
Before getting in over its head trying to do grown up news about Benghazi, 60 Minutes has wasted time this year on: Bill Gates; Dick Cheney’s heart; a segment described as “Anderson Cooper swims in the Nile with crocodiles”; a hard-hitting investigation of Michael Jackson’s personal effects; MLB pitcher R. A. Dickey, impending doom from asteroids; the TV show Downtown Abbey; filmmaker Judd Apatow; and coming this Monday, “Scott Pelley reports at 155 mph” on the latest news from auto manufacturer Lamborghini.
Do yourself a favor if you want journalism, watch Frontline instead.
Here’s what they’ve been covering this year:
Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria
In “Hunting The Nightmare Bacteria,” FRONTLINE reporter David Hoffman investigates the alarming rise of untreatable infections: from a young girl thrust onto life support in an Arizona hospital, to a young American infected in India who comes home to Seattle, and an uncontrollable outbreak at the nation’s most prestigious hospital, where 18 patients were mysteriously infected and six died, despite frantic efforts to contain the killer bacteria.
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A landmark expose on the NFL’s decades-long actions to bury scientific evidence and the war it’s waged to keep players and the public in the dark about the dangers of football not just to adults, but teenagers and children as well.
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“An in-depth look at the aftermath of Egypt’s revolution, and what could come next.”
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“Lowell Bergman investigates the hidden reality of rape on the job for immigrant women.” — Bergman is the producer that left 60 Minutes after CBS corporate interfered with an investigation into the tobacco industry in the 1990s.
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And the mother of them all, a four episode special: Money, Power & Wall Street. It explains basically everything and just about brought me to tears.