That won't do, CBS. That won't do. - "Dylan Davies may have lied to you, but you lied to us."

[kpete]

TUE NOV 12, 2013 AT 10:00 PM PST
That won't do, CBS. That won't do.
byMark SumnerFollow

,,,

The thing is, the story itself was the least of it.

It's not that you made a mistake. It's that you sold that mistake with such vigor. You maintained that the report had been verified by FBI sources. It hadn't. Instead, sources in the FBI quite readily acknowledged that the story your source had provided to them did not match your information. You were already aware that Dylan Davies had given a different account of events to his employer. More than that, you were certainly aware that months of congressional testimony and investigations had produced information that directly contradicted the information in your story. The narrative provided by Davis should have been subject to the kind of extraordinary proof that such extraordinary claims demand. Far from validating the information, you deliberately and knowingly withheld information that made your source appear less reliable, and clearly you did not carry out the level of validation you maintained. That's not being misled. That's abetting a lie. That's collusion.

Why would you take this action? Well, the reporter in the story admitted openly that she had a direct, political motive. She wasn't passing along information to enlighten the public. She didn't even make a pretense at neutrality. She called for vindictive action against people who had done nothing wrong, on the basis of a story she knew—knew—was at best the unverified second (if not the third) version of a story told by a confessed liar. In running her story without validation, you endorsed that position.

Finally, you ran the story with no admission that CBS' parent organization had a direct, financial interest in raising the profile of this tale and it's author. It's not the first time that a network has failed to divulge its clear interest in promoting other media properties in their portfolio, but it may be the most egregious.

A completely fabricated story? Yes, but that's not the real issue. Dylan Davies may have lied to you, but you lied to us. You pretended to verification you didn't do. You accepted a story from a reporter working toward an acknowledged political goal. And you ran a story in which you had an undisclosed, but clear financial interest.

That's journalistic malpractice in the first degree. "Whoops," is not going to cut it.

MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/13/1255207/-That-won-t-do-CBS-That-won-t-do

[Little Star]

1. Maybe CBS could tell the true story...

like maybe a special that would explain what the truth is.

They told people the lie, now they need to tell people the truth. That might be helpful for people who believed (and still believe) the friggin lie.

[Berlum]

2. CBS knowingly crawled into bed with the Right-wing Propaganda Machine, inc. (R)

In so doing they willfully disgraced themselves and lied to the American people.

[Wilms]

3. ^

[libodem]

4. Let's call

For congressional hearings. This is a republican criminal conspiracy designed to damage the United States. And had been.

[L0oniX]

5. C Bull Shit.

[navarth]

11. That's good

CBS = Call Bull Shit. Like it.

[dougolat]

16. See BS on CBS! works for me...nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. Made for the occasion...

[navarth]

20. well done. nt

[Arugula Latte]

22. You hit the bullseye on that one.

[Arugula Latte]

21. Catapult Benghazi Sleaze

[Arugula Latte]

23. Link to Lara Logan's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/laralogan

[gtar100]

6. That's what they get for hiring republicans. Wouldn't expect any less from them.

They don't have what it takes to objectively report on anything because their own self interest is of primary importance to them. If they really cared about the truth, they wouldn't be republicans.

The only way to stop these media outlets from lying to you is to stop listening to them. Turn them off. And give them as much respect as they give to you, which is absolutely none.

Republicans can parade around in fancy clothes, nice cars, and high paying jobs all they want. It changes nothing of the ugliness and hateful bitterness they carry inside themselves.

[Berlum]

27. "Whoops," is not going to cut it."

[OregonBlue]

7. After the story we find out that the "reporter" is married to a military propagandist. We find out

that a former Fox executive is now head of CBS. We find out that CBS was going to make money off publishing the liar's book. We find out that they knew the liar had given a different version to his employer and that they didn't bother to find out what he told the FBI.

So we can only conclude, this was a deliberate political hit piece. CBS has definitely gone over to the dark side.

[tblue]

15. 60 Minutes of Hate

60 Minutes ain't what it used to be.

[Berlum]

28. .

[Liberal_Dog]

8. K & R

[SCVDem]

9. CBS failed to realize

FOX has no reputation to lose while CBS is an historical station of integrity and news leaders.

Of course that went south when telling the truth about Bush and his service record went public and they fired Rather.

Katy Couric was their attempt to further follow the FOX model of talking blondes from the entertainment side of the business. That was a fail because we expect better from CBS.

I stopped watching 60 Minutes when most of the stories fell into the entertainment category instead of in depth investigative journalism.

I recall when the scariest words in the country were, "Sir, Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes is waiting for you!"

[arthritisR_US]

10. Right on! He to the real heart of the matter:)

[ljm2002]

12. Even Lara Logan's apology was misleading...

...when she said "We should not have included him in our story, and for that we are very sorry." They did not "include him" in the story, his account WAS the story.

No, that pseudo-apology absolutely does not cut it.

[tblue37]

26. AND her "apology" never suggested that the main points

of the story were wrong. It implied that the story itself was OK, but that just ONE of their sources was suspect.

In a very real sense, her fake apology was actually a sly doubling down on promoting the story's central claims.

[calimary]

13. So what can we do about it?

[karmkay]

14. stop watching cbs

It's as bad as Fox.

[calimary]

17. Welcome to DU, karmkay!

Glad you're here! I agree, that's one thing - but it's WAY far from the only thing. Nobody will notice anything if some of us stop watching CBS. HOWEVER, if we do, what we need to do along with that - is to notify CBS that we've stopped. Tree falls in a forest. Nobody sees it. Therefore who cares? No one will know. It will thus have no effect. And there will be no impact.

I'd even go so far as to post to OTHER network sites that you're no longer watching CBS and why you did so.

If they think you don't care, they won't either. They won't give a fuck. But if they start hearing about it. If they start seeing it. And then seeing a groundswell or a drumbeat or something that alerts them that MORE people know and care and give a damn, then seems to me that goes a lot farther and might be more effective.

I remember reading about a woman who wrote a letter to, I think it was, the Washington Post about some coverage of a story she didn't appreciate - it had factual errors, problems, an agenda. She included in her letter a CC: to the Washington Post's chief competition, the New York Times. And a few others including a couple of advocacy groups. MESSAGE: She wasn't just complaining about the Post or correcting misreporting or misrepresentation. She was making sure OTHERS SAW THIS. Making sure that this was information that was going out beyond the insular idea of "I'm writing to you." In her case it was "I'm writing this so that a whole bunch of other people will see it, too, and some of 'em are people you'd rather not have looped into the conversation, and knowing what you're up to and what/how you just fucked something up.

Just wondering how we could add to the pile-on, post more, and more widely, add to threads on Daily Kos and conversations on other blogs, keep this thing going before it starts to fizzle out and dear little lara thinks she got away with it.

[REP]

24. Morgan Jones, Dylan Davies ... still waiting to hear he's really Welshy ap Welsh-Welsh

[idwiyo]

25. k&r

[Enthusiast]

29. They did the same with the disability segment. CBS is clear gone.

And I am clear done with CBS.

They would no more abandon their new course than Bill O'Reilly would admit he has been untruthful about the President.