Watching this you’d think some minor player in a 60 Minutes story had said something incorrect. The truth is that the source around which they built a Bengazhi story was a lying liar, Lara Logan has a previously self-admitted but here unmentioned agenda about Benghazi, and the source that they chose (who was so obviously untrustworthy that Fox wouldn’t use him) had a book deal with another CBS unit.
Reader Interactions
104Comments
Comments are closed.
debbie
Her statement was totally underwhelming. Big whoop.
Poopyman
Another nail in the coffin of Big Media’s stranglehold on public opinion. Walter Cronkite is gone, and there will never be another “Most Trusted Man in America”.
rikyrah
That lying heifer should be fired.
Narcissus
Surely you hate people when they’re not polite
Réalisant mon espoir
Mudge
In 2004 heads rolled at CBS due to the Bush Viet Nam avoidance story. That story caused a firestorm on the right. In 2013, here’s betting, no heads will roll as a result of this mendacious story that soothed the right wing crazies no end.
The liberal media at work. And the office pool concerns how many days it takes for right wing crazy Lara Logan to move to Fox.
PsiFighter37
So is she going to be hung out to dry like Dan Rather was in 2004? That effectively ended the career of a much more accomplished journalist than a hack like Logan…she deserves to be treated with at most as little respect as Rather was, if not a heck of a lot worse.
geg6
@rikyrah:
You’ve got that right. I’ve thought so for years now.
@Mudge:
Six months. I hope for sooner, but I’m sticking with six months.
cmorenc
What she admitted was that it was “incorrect” to include Davie’s report in their story, because they later found out he gave conflicting accounts to the FBI and the state department. What she did NOT admit was that his whole story was totally fabricated bullshit. As the link to John Marshall’s article in mistermix’s lead-off post indicates, Davie’s fabricated story WAS essentially CBS’s 60-minutes’ entire Bengazi “story”.
Anya
“We were misled and it was a mistake to include him in our report.” What does she mean by “include him in our report”? The WHOLE report was built around his lies.
I guess 60 Minutes will get away with this lame excuse of an apology. They won’t have wingnuts hounding them and other “journalists” won’t make them accountable.
Eric U.
does Fox actually have an infinite capacity to absorb people that were previously trying to masquerade as journalists?
Anya
@Eric U.: Why would they need to go to Fox when everyone else is trying to be Fox light?
Betty Cracker
Lindsey Graham and others who latched onto Logan’s hacktastic “exposé” are also going to skate by without making a sincere apology or facing meaningful consequences. IOKIYAR
cmorenc
@PsiFighter37:
There’s a strong likelihood that Rather was deliberately set up by the Bush campaign’s dirty tricks operation. Rather didn’t commit to the story on the strength of the purported National Guard document alone, but also on the strength of two strongly plausible witnesses who were initially willing to confirm Rather’s story but who abruptly recanted and crept back away, pulling the rug out from Rather. I’d bet the alleged document was fabricated by the dirty tricks ops to look plausibly genuine, but with the subtle flaws in typeface that, combined with the disappearing witnesses, gave the Bush campaign the ammunition needed to destroy Rather and intimidate any other MSM journalists from going anywhere near the story after that, other than to cover the discrediting.
serge
I believe that Ms Logan is our new Judith Miller, so firmly in the embrace of those she views as powerful. I remember her spirited defense of Stanley McChrystal and contempt for Michael Hastings after Hastings took the general down more than a few pegs. She was wrong then, too.
ronin122
@Eric U.:
Naw, there’s only so many TV slots and there’s many more wingnuts than places to put them on salary. Supply and Demand and all
the Conster
She’s a pretty blond RW bullshitter, so she’s not going anywhere but up.
MikeJ
@Narcissus: You beat me to it. I wasted time by firing up iTunes to make sure what I remembered wasn’t wrong though.
Betty Cracker
PS: It wouldn’t hurt to contact 60 Minutes and tell them you thought the apology was lame as hell and that they’ll need to get rid of Logan if they want to salvage their credibility. Dan Rather got shit-canned because the wingnut howler monkeys raised holy hell. We moonbats need to play hardball too.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
This fabrication was, and is, being used against President Obama. As such, Logan will not only go unscathed, any attempt by CBS to 86 her will make her the right’s newest heroine/martyr. Bank it.
gnomedad
Lesson for the right: lie about something loud and long enough and the MSM will bend over backwards to validate at least part of it in an effort to appear “balanced”. Next up: death panel recruit breaks silence.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
Mistakes were made, dude, mistakes were made.
piratedan
@Betty Cracker: kinda sad when 60 Minutes, which was the show that actually helped to bring Big Tobacco down, has been reduced to a “misled” statement that essentially revealed an entire 20 minute segment as nothing more than anti-Government propaganda for a journalist with an agenda who was looking to be led down a predisposed path. Guess it’s just another illustration that our media lives inside it’s own bubble too.
hoodie
Seems like CBS is going modified limited hangout on this, hoping it will all blow over. 60 Minutes has had good ratings up until this, and they’re probably loathe to make changes unless the ratings take a massive hit. My guess is that Logan had some popularity among more liberal audience members because of her reporting from the Iraq War and sympathy due to what happened to her in Egypt, but a lot of those folks didn’t know about her neocon proclivities. Supposedly, the show is strong in among 25-54 year olds who are more web-oriented than average, so maybe ratings could suffer with this lameass response and web discussion of her foreign policy biases. She might have gotten in front of that by reworking the story in light of the fact that its central witness was a fantasist selling a book, but she doesn’t appear to be inclined to do that. I don’t think Logan is typical FoxNews material, but people will do all sorts of degrading things to stay in the cocktail circuit. Logan also seems to have built up quite a animus towards the middle east, and that might be enough to push her in that direction.
Gary K
@rikyrah: Gratuituous comment about a woman’s appearance. Please, let’s be better than this.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Good idea. Just did that very thing.
Elizabelle
Yeah, if the original story wasn’t awful enough, the way they’ve handled this — a coverup, actually — trumps it.
And then they made viewers wait until the end of their broadcast for a noninformative apology. (Show began with a “look what mean dark foreigners did to this American” in Syria story.)
The NYTimes readers comments are having a field day with this story.
Logan’s gotta go. To Fox or to be Lindsey Graham’s spokesblonde or wherever she wants. Just out of there.
MomSense
In the RW worldview apologies are only something that welfare moms with granite counter tops and refrigerators should do.
SarahT
@Gary K: Sadly, it’s the truth – Logan’s career won’t suffer in the least – more likely she’ll join the other Barbies @ Fox.
Elizabelle
Gotta say, Go Pro is probably selling a lot of cameras today.
My nephews have one for motocross riding. Awesome.
EconWatcher
NYT hit this pretty hard, so I don’t think the “lamestream media” is just going to let this pass too easily. Don’t know if this will cost Logan her job, but I don’t think she has put the matter behind her yet.
Ash Can
@Gary K: Meh. To me, it’s no different from referring to a man as a dick. Even less insulting than that. And I’m a woman myself.
Memphisj
The other thing about Logan that I have yet to see mentioned through any of this fiasco is that she is married to a defense contractor. I worked in daily newspapers for 12 years and at most I worked at (in the 80s/early 90s) there were ethics clauses that addressed covering events where you had a potential conflict of interest.
I can’t help but think that the fact that her personal financial interests are at the very least tied to or have an appearance of conflict relating to military actions. At least it should be a subject of conversation in news stories about this debacle. Maybe someone can point me to a story relating to this but I’ve yet to see any coverage to this effect.
MattF
Mistermix’s Digby-link is worth reading. As Digby says, advocacy journalism is fine, but risky. What Logan did is what came naturally to her– what CBS did (and did not do) is the real fuckup.
Cervantes
@rikyrah: Are you actually calling someone a “heifer”? Who, and why?
Elizabelle
Reader comment on NY Times Logan non-apology story:
from NYTimes reader “long memory” in Woodbury, MN:
I did see the JFK story on webpage; didn’t read it.
What a touching tribute to a WWII veteran who eventually gave his life in service to his country. Way to go, NY Times.
Patrick
That was pathetic. It is sad to see considering what 60 minutes has been able to do in the past. I’m still waiting for an explanation from CBS as to why this woman is still working for them as reporter considering the highly political comments she has made about Obama. She has no credibility whatsoever.
shelly
And I’m sure Darryl Issa will immediately call for hearings into this CBS scandal.
Huh?
Baud
I blame Obama.
RSR
agenda journalism-
via James Wolcott on the twitter machine:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-disabled-20131007,0,7195237.story#axzz2kGqQpbsy
’60 Minutes” shameful attack on the disabled
MomSense
CBS wanted this story because it had invested in the contributor’s book. They were using one division to promote the product of another division. It was a definite conflict of interest for a news organization but increasingly what passes for news is really promotion for the interests of the corporate owners.
Elizabelle
I hate seeing the GOP co-opt and ruin practices and assets meant to protect the common good.
Impeachment is a serious procedure, meant as a last resort. They employed it over a blow job, and essentially took it off the table when a sane political system would have deployed it against the next administration, which betrayed the public on numerous occasions.
CBS and other networks that produced excellent, in-depth documentaries and extended segments on subjects of interest? (Big Tobacco, Harvest of Shame, lots of public service and consumer reporting.) For sale to ratings, advertisers, and the quest not to be unliked today.
It’s “throw something military” out for the rightwing, and Dateline on murders and straying spouses/reality shows nonstop.
The Red Pen
Over in Freeperville, they’ve figured it out: Hillary threatened to kill everyone at CBS to “discredit” this true and accurate story so that the Beeeeenghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazi scandal will die down.
If you don’t think about it, it makes perfect sense.
Elizabelle
dpm: killer blogpost title.
Roger Moore
@Narcissus:
So, are you suggesting that 60 Minutes needs to run, run, run, run, run, run away from this story?
Gypsy Howell
So Lara, what DID happen in Egypt, anyway? And why should I believe you?
Mike in NC
@Elizabelle:
Lindsey is still riding the Benghazi! bandwagon, but just to enhance his wingnut credibility he’s apparently taking the lead on pushing for new anti-abortion legislation in the Senate.
Elizabelle
WaPost update on the Virginia Attorney General’s race:
17 votes.
MattF
@Elizabelle: FYI, this is the real-time election result link:
http://electionresults.virginia.gov/resultsSW.aspx?type=SWR&map=CTY
handsmile
@Roger Moore:
Well, they can’t seem to face up to the facts.
gratuitous
So, has anyone been able to discern what 60 Minutes’ story would have been without Davies’ contribution that was mistakenly included? Because it seems to me like it was, you know, the whole goddam story. A story that was thoroughly debunked within minutes of airing after Logan spent more than a year on it (according to Logan).
Sloppy hardly begins to describe this episode, and the non-apology apology Logan mechanically recited in the last two minutes of CBS’s broadcast last night has four year olds across the country shaking their heads and saying, “Dude, weak.”
shelly
“Over in Freeperville, they’ve figured it out: Hillary threatened to kill everyone at CBS to “discredit” this true and accurate story so tha”
*************
You mean they actually had a news story that’s newer than six days old? Always laugh when they have some headline marked ‘BREAKING NEWS!” and it’s always something from last week.
They’re having another Freepathon? Why do they need $85,000 to run a crappy website?
dpm (dread pirate mistermix)
@Narcissus: Yep, fucked that one up.
Elizabelle
@MattF:
Thank you. Bookmarked it.
Frankensteinbeck
Nobody cares about Benghazi, not even the ODS crowd. It’s just one of their buzzwords to use against the black guy. Nobody cared about the IRS scandal. I can’t even remember what the news reporter scandal was about. In two months, nobody will care about the healthcare.gov scandal. The media has been trying to pin something on Obama for years, but nobody actually gives two shakes of a rat’s ass what they think.
Cervantes
@Memphisj: The other thing about Logan that I have yet to see mentioned through any of this fiasco is that she is married to a defense contractor. […] I can’t help but think that the fact that her personal financial interests are at the very least tied to or have an appearance of conflict relating to military actions. […] Maybe someone can point me to a story relating to this but I’ve yet to see any coverage to this effect.
There was a story about Logan in the NYT about two years ago where she is pictured modeling a $5000 Cartier watch and a $2000 shirt, and her husband is described as a “work-at-home Congressional liaison” and a “soldier.” No explicit mention of conflict of interest, however.
CaseyL
@Betty Cracker: Good idea. I’ve done so, though I don’t know how much value they place in emails.
Roger Moore
@shelly:
Those rubes aren’t going to grift themselves, you know!
GregB
Can’t we just all agree that mistakes were made and then move on to the next ginned up faux scandal?
The Thin Black Duke
@Frankensteinbeck: Bottom line, the Obama administration has been ridiculously scandal-free, and they really, really hate that.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yep.
piratedan
@The Thin Black Duke: its like he’s actually interested in governing the country or something… it’s just really weird…. /////
The Red Pen
@shelly:
Frequently, when I go to check the Freeper reaction to something, I have to wait at least a day, if not longer. That’s only for stories that they don’t like. When the wingnut blogs pick something up immediately, they’re right on it.
Try $340,000. The $85K is per quarter.
Grifters gotta grift.
Betty Cracker
@The Thin Black Duke: On planet earth, that’s absolutely true — the Obama admin has been amazingly scandal-free. On planet wingnut, the Obama admin has been one continuous scandal from the campaign launch to the present day. These are people who are still screeching about the unjustly disbanded ACORN organization every time they lose an election. The problem is that the media is trying to reconcile reality with wingnut fantasies.
mk3872
CBS News made a corporate decision post-Rathergate to become a “light” version of Fox News and take a conservative angle on their reporting. In fact, 60 Minutes producers were hired right from Fox News: http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=10870
Patrick
@Betty Cracker:
Wasn’t it Rush Limbaugh who the other day claimed that Obama’s pledge that nobody would lose their health insurance was the biggest lie of any US President ever.
Don’t they realize that with such a monstrous hyperbole, they make themselves look like circus clowns rather than somebody one should listen to.
mk3872
Ms. Logan has a long history of pushing right-wing memes … This apparently is okie-dokie, while Dan Rather-style decades of service to the network and some center-left memes are an offense worthy of firing:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/09/lara-logan-s-war-cry.html
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
This. Reporting reality consistently means losing the wingnut portion of the market, and the business people don’t want to do that.
JWR
@Betty Cracker: Yes! I wrote to them last night, remaining fair yet pithy. Told ’em it’s really time to ship Logan of to Fox, etc.
But what surprised me is that during the original Davies, ’60 Minutes’ broadcast, I was listening with only half an ear. I truly thought and believed it was a rerun from 6 months ago.
Elizabelle
@mk3872:
Re CBS/60 Minutes hiring producers from Fox:
I knew there was a reason I never watched it anymore.
You can see it. Hard-hitting foreign stories: here’s another country of browns, crying out for an American military response. (That’s the Evening News and 60 Minutes.)
Just. Cannot. Watch.
debbie
Logan aside, this is also an indictment of the book industry. Bad enough to be whoring out literary frauds like Frey, but to totally bypass the fact checking is an abomination. Sadly, however, it’s S&S’s MO.
Gene108
@shelly:
The 85k is the 4th quarter goal. On annualized basis he needs 340k to run his website.
MattF
@debbie: Their website:
http://imprints.simonandschuster.biz/threshold
“Conservative non-fiction,” it says. Ha ha.
Jay C
@Elizabelle:
That commenter’s reference to the “JFK” story in today’s Times is a bit off-the-mark, IMHO: Kennedy Revisionism is actually neither new, nor a particularly recent innovation. And Adam Clymer’s thesis is a fairly pat one: the “Camelot” myth has been debunked for years now (some of his cites are from the 1980s) – and, fifty years on, one could only expect a little more historical objectivity than what was current in the immediate aftermath of a national trauma like a Presidential assassination.
OT here, I think: but worth discussing at a near-future time….
Villago Delenda Est
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Exactly. Her howler is in support of The Narraitive. Dan Rather was going against The Narrative,
My nym. Again and again and again.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Jamey
@Betty Cracker: Here’s the link: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml
schrodinger's cat
The courtier press is destroying this country along with the GOP.
Elie
I watch El Jazeera America more and more.. You get the news without the bullshit and a lot of good special reporting on a variety of national and international issues. I haven’t watched 60 minutes in a long time. I occasionally watch MSNBC but out west here, I miss seeing the Rev during my workday and instead have to tough out viewing my least favorites, Chris Hayes and RACHEL!! Too much alike in too many ways. BBC world is also pretty decent…
schrodinger's cat
Who watches CBS?
Elizabelle
@Jay C:
re: JFK reputation, then and now:
Very much worth discussing.
Shall read the NYTimes story and keep an eye out for others.
Sad anniversary coming up.
shortstop
@dpm (dread pirate mistermix): I swear, though, that I’ve heard a live version of this song in which he sings, “We are blind and we are vain,” reversing the original order. I can’t remember what he hates people for in that version, though.
Elizabelle
Incidentally, Mary Matalin is or was Editor-in-Chief of Threshold Editions, the Simon and Schuster imprint which was publishing Davies’ military fiction (that ensnared the intrepid Lara Logan), then pulled it. Threshold claims to be a respectable publisher of “conservative non-fiction”, as noted upthread.
From Matalin’s bio at Washington Speakers Bureau (aka Buckrakers Is Us):
A 2009 Politico story on Matalin:
Fixer, hmmm?
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
Sounds like “conservative non-fiction” is set to join “military intelligence” and “jumbo shrimp” on the list of oxymorons.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
Do recall that as a commentator on one of the networks on election night, 200, she said quite openly that it was not possible that Al Gore was ahead in Florida.
This woman is the Bellatrix Lestrange of the Rethuglican Party, loyal follower of the Dark Lord. Sith Apprentice to Darth Cheney.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Don’t forget “Corporate Responsibility”.
MCA1
@Ash Can: Really? Calling a woman a cow is the same as calling a man a dick? Using “bitch” might be more analogous. Likening Logan to a bovine is just below the belt and unnecessary, and distracts from the point of rikyrah’s post, with which everyone here agrees.
shortstop
@Roger Moore: Yes, and the word “respectable” also jumped out and burned my eyeballs.
ruemara
@Gary K: Your concern, noted it is. Also, wrong, since “heifer” has nothing to do with her appearance.
@Elizabelle: I want one for shooting, but even the base model is a little out of the cash box for me. But it does so much great stuff.
maya
@MCA1:
Not that I disagree with your point but what should we call it when a woman “bullshits”? Or do women never do that?
MCA1
@Frankensteinbeck: On the first of those, I have to disagree. I’ve spoken with a couple of sharp, plugged in to the hilt sort of institutional Republican type people who would actually vote for a Democrat if they were a sharp enough business person running against a fundie, including Ivy-educated folks, and I’ve heard some very sharp words about Benghazi. Mostly based on the sort of nonsense and predisposition to believe the Democrats are pussies and can’t handle foreign policy perspective that’s been beaten into them for 30 years which leads to journalistic atrocities like Logan’s. So, if they don’t hear a lot of frenzy about what a disgrace that segment was, and it’s not thoroughly and loudly discredited right there on CNN and in the Washington Post, they’re going to add it to their pile of indictments against Obama and his Middle East handling.
Totally agree that that other stuff really doesn’t matter and no one cares about the IRS looking askance at Tea Party groups outside of Tea Partiers.
MCA1
@maya: I’d be cool with “fucking liar,” myself. Some incivility is fine by me, but I just think the heifer thing seems to be taking a gratuitous shot at appearance (not to mention it seems to be wildly off base concerning Logan, factually speaking – I may hate her work, but the woman’s a bona fide hottie and the farthest thing from overweight). Not a huge deal, just a message board post, I know. Just came off a little over the top and likely to dissuade some who may otherwise be on rikyrah’s side.
ETA: it just dawned on me that you’re perhaps saying the connection may be that she’s “bull”shitting but it would be possibly odd to call her a bull so rikyrah opted for a female bovine term instead? Sorry, I’m a little slow. I’d never connect gender to the verb “to bullshit,” personally.
MCA1
@ruemara: I may be missing something here, but in what context is the first and most obvious connotation of “heifer” or any other cow-related word, when used to describe a woman, not regarding appearance? As I noted to maya, it’s quite obvious that Lara Logan is in no way someone a normal person would describe as anything other than quite attractive, so it’s nonsensical in the context, but I just don’t see the other meaning to which you’re alluding.
maya
@MCA1: No need to over-think it. I was just waxing theoretical as I have a particular problem with a couple(2) of women who flat out”bullshit” way too often. Calling them “fucking liars” is a bit strong and “bullshit” seems specifically sex oriented. I am tempted to call “cowshit” on them, but that probably wouldn’t go over well. I suppose I should rise above it and just wish them a nice day.
shortstop
@MCA1: I believe ruemara was going for a time-tested English insult. “Cow” isn’t used so much in the US as it is in the UK. Whether it applies to appearance there I cannot say with certainty, as I found other English-ish epithets more irresistibly adoptable while I was living there, and went in for those instead.
jak
@Mudge:
And take Sharyl Attkinson and Jan Crawford with her.
Mnemosyne
@MCA1:
At least as women tend to use it, “heifer” is more like “bitch,” but with connotations of the woman being a stupid follower who doesn’t think for herself.
Elizabelle
@ruemara:
Ah, right. You’re talking about the Go Pro camera.
The “shooting” startled me for a moment.
They seem to be amazing for what they do. And you can attach them to a helmet.
Nephews were trying to affix camera to their dog’s head, so they could have “Chloe-cam.” She did not cooperate.
MCA1
@Mnemosyne: Thanks – consider me educated now. Shortstop, likewise.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
This. Who the hell ever thought it was about appearance? It’s about being as stupid as a heifer. And if you’ve ever met any real animal heifers, you’d know exactly what is meant by the term.
rikyrah
@Gypsy Howell:
you aren’t the only one who has thought this.
flukebucket
Hell, she can always go to Breitbart and work with Rand Paul.
J R in WV
Regarding the two CBS 60 seconds reports, I used their web page contact tool to send them the following message:
” I have two issues to bring to your attention.
First, the Bengazhi story that was completely based upon allegations from a proven con-man. Your apology gave the impression that the story as reported still stood as a truthful accounting of the tragedy, when in reality there was no truth left in the story at all.
The reporter and producers of the Bengazhi report should be let go to find work they are more suited for.
Secondly, your story about Social Security Disability is the real scandal. People wind up seeing multiple doctors and hiring lawyers to get what they are entitled to by law. Your report was based upon a political hack job prepared at the behest of a Republican Senator who is a well -known hater of Social Security.
In the real world, people should be taken care of by the whole culture when they become disabled. In America, they become suspicious sneaky potential thieves who need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This is just wrong, and immoral in every way, as well as being factually incorrect.
Your report on Social Security didn’t talk to anyone in a position to rebut the baseless accusations your reporters brought to the 60 Minutes brand. Like the chief actuary of Social Security, Steve Goss, for example!
By presenting Senator Coburn’s right wing accusations as fact, without any effort to dig for the real truth, you have pretty much ruined the CBS News brand with me.
I grew up in a newspaper and worked in print and TV in the past, and I know good work from poor excuses. Shame on CBS for giving in to political pressure to report falsehoods in support of right-wing tropes! ”
I’m not gonna try to use the block-quote tool for the first time, just regular quite marks at the top and bottom. Hope it makes a difference. I am very glad the rest of the real news media is giving them what-for!
Trooptrap Tripetrope
I just learned that the president of CBS News, David Rhodes, was previously with Fox News for twelve years. So I don’t expect any accountability from CBS News in this matter, nor do I expect Logan will be shown the door.
Another Holocene Human
@J R in WV: Well said.
David Koch
I’m shocked!
I’m shocked!
Who would have thought a former Bikini Model would be so superficial?
I mean, when I want news I always turn to the Kim Kardashian Evening News.