FAIR Action Alert!: 60 Minutes: Shelving a Story to Boost Bush?

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http://www.fair.org/activism/cbs-niger.html

ACTION ALERT:
60 Minutes: Shelving a Story to Boost Bush?
CBS puts Niger expose on hold as boss endorses Republicans

September 28, 2004

In an outrageous politicization of journalism, CBS announced it would not
air a report on forged documents that the Bush administration used to sell
the Iraq war until after the November 2 election (New York Times,
9/25/04). A network spokesperson issued a statement declaring, "We now
believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the
presidential election."

The 60 Minutes segment was ready to air on September 8, but was bumped in
favor of the now infamous report that relied on supposed National Guard
memos whose authenticity CBS now says it cannot confirm. The furor over
the Guard memos has created a situation where CBS executives say "the
network can now not credibly air a report questioning how the Bush
administration could have gotten taken in by phony documents" (Newsweek
online, 9/22/04).

Of course, what's really inappropriate here is CBS allowing its PR
problems to suppress a news report on an important issue until after it no
longer matters. The shelved 60 Minutes story deals with the origins of
documents purportedly showing that Iraq under Saddam Hussein tried to
obtain uranium from Niger-- documents that turned out to be forgeries.
The story, according to the Newsweek online report, asks "tough questions
about how the White House came to embrace the fraudulent documents and why
administration officials chose to include a 16-word reference to the
questionable uranium purchase in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union
speech."

Though such questions are clearly relevant to a presidential campaign that
largely revolves around Bush's decision to invade Iraq, CBS intends to
keep the answers to itself until the election has passed. Could there be
more than the embarrassment over the Guard story behind this decision?

Sumner Redstone, CEO of CBS's parent company Viacom, made an unusual
political statement at a gathering of corporate leaders in Hong Kong
(Asian Wall Street Journal, 9/24/04):

"I don't want to denigrate Kerry... but from a Viacom standpoint, the
election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the
Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in,
deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people.... But from a
Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration
is better for our company."

Redstone repeated these sentiments in an interview with Time (10/4/04):

"There has been comment upon my contribution to Democrats like Senator
Kerry. Senator Kerry is a good man. I've known him for many years. But
it happens that I vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe
that a Republican administration is better for media companies than a
Democratic one."

According to a write-up by Forbes (9/23/04)-- the sponsor of the
conference where Redstone issued his endorsement of Bush-- the CEO
asserted that "he never gets involved in any aspects of the network's news
coverage." But that claim, hard to believe when made by any media
industry chief executive, seems particularly dubious given Forbes' report
that "Redstone said he has been talking daily to top CBS officials and to
Viacom board members about the controversy" over the Guard memos.

It is journalistically indefensible for CBS to withhold a story due to
embarrassment incurred by another, unrelated piece. It is particularly
unacceptable when the shelving of a story benefits a candidate that CBS's
boss has just publicly endorsed. If CBS wants to restore trust in its
news judgment, it can begin by applying journalistic standards, not
political calculations, to the decision on when to air its report on the
origin of the forged Niger documents.


ACTION: Please contact 60 Minutes and urge them to stand up for
journalistic principle by airing the report on the Niger forgeries. And
call Viacom and CBS executives and tell them to allow 60 Minutes to report
the news without political interference.


CONTACT:
CBS
60 Minutes
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
mailto:60m@cbsnews.com

Phone: (212) 975-3247

Sumner Redstone, Chairman, Viacom
(212) 258-6000

Les Moonves, Chairman of CBS; co-President & co-CEO, Viacom
(323) 575-2345


As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your
correspondence.

that remotely looks negative about bushco. (and isn't it interesting that the head of viacom, which owns cbs, is a bush supporter?) this whole thing stinks to the heavens

To quote Mark Morford:

"And who can't clearly see Rove, the ruthless conspirator and "co-president," grinning like a troll on ether, orchestrating the whole memo maneuver and hiring some GOP flunkies to feed the docs to overly gullible CBS News with the full intent of later discrediting them and screaming abut the bogus "liberal media" and hanging sad wonky ol' Dan Rather out to dry and making a big fat nonsensical media field day of it?

"Voilá, the net effect: a total and shockingly efficient deflection of all public attention away from the obvious fact that George W. Bush is, and was, and forever will be an incompetent AWOL serviceman whose meager and embarrassing record pales in comparison to Kerry's outstanding heroism, and adding yet another notch to the Repubs belt of truly outstanding, world-class deceptions.

"Conjecture? Mere wishful liberal thinking? Hardly. With Rove, it's never a difficult leap from the seemingly impossible and utterly ruthless to the absolutely soulless and eminently doable.

More here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2004/09/29/notes092904.DTL

CBS News:

I am a long-time viewer of CBS and especially 60 Minutes. Over the years I have come to regard CBS News as the most unbiased, fairest news source in the United States today. It is with great consternation that I read reports that CBS News and 60 Minutes will be shelving the Niger report until after the November 2nd election. I ask you to please reconsider.

It is obvious that certain interests in this country would inhibit the accurate and impartial reporting of news and information. There is nothing worse that could happen to this country. We need more media to stand up and refuse to be spoon-fed manicured bits of quasi-information. In my opinion, there is nothing more valid right now than a story that exposes the Bush administration's illegal and illegitimate causes for this most immoral war. Please, do not shirk from your journalistic responsibilities. Report fairly and impartially and allow us, the citizens of the United States, to judge what is right and what is wrong.

In closing I ask you, if this were a story about John Kerry's alleged dishonesty and disinformation, would you be so eager to postpone its broadcast? Please, let the American people judge for themselves.

Respectfully,

I called earlier, but I guess I should write also. :-)
thanks for the inspiration

My next letter is going to include this:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public
servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is
warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency
in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a
whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full
liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly
necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does
right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are
to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the
truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more
important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about
any one else."

"Theodore Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149 May 7, 1918

:kick:

This is no surprise.
Duckie

I have long suspected that the corporate media "Bush* push" is driven not by any love for the evil dunce, but by the usual: love for the Almighty Dollar. This nails it down:

"I don't want to denigrate Kerry... but from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people.... But from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company."

Brilliant. Let the country, indeed the whole world, go to hell in a handbasket so you can cash in on a few more big mergers. Maybe they could change their flagship call letters to WPOS. :-)

Edit: finicky spacing in Redstone quote

Enemies of a Democratic and Free Republic.

Freepers would all buy it, because their favorite hate site is mentioned in the title. hehe

CBS, are they killing off their own media?

Here's my e-mail...for those who need somewhere to start:

Dear 60 Minutes,

It's very upsetting as a viewer who was aware of the "Forged Documents" way back, to know that the rest of the American People won't be able to view it before the Election.

What if Americans had known the seriousness of "Watergate" break in before they voted Richard Nixon in for a second term. Wouldn't our country have been spared much pain having to see a President resign because of impending Impeachment.

Don't the American people deserve to know a President and his Cabinet lied to the American people to lead them into Invading another country against the wishes of the UN, many of our most trusted allies and a portion of the American people who already knew that the information wasn't holding up that they had given us?

The actions of this administration in leading to hysteria in this country that Saddam Hussein was involved with BinLaden and planning to attack us when we were so vulnerable after 9/11 is shocking!

Americans need to see this information contained in the 60 Minutes Feature which is already available in Salon.org and on many other sites on the Internet. The news is out there...please free this report so that ALL of us can be told before we make up our minds whom to vote for on November 2nd.

It's your duty as fellow Americans to do this.

Sincerely,

Interestingly I just watched "The Hunting of the President" tonight and what amazes me is how easy it was for an assortment of complete sleaze-bags to get the media to headline nasty stories about Clinton and turn them into national news. :eyes:

My letter was short and simple, nothing worthy of posting, but I asked them to run the story.

thanks for posting

Broadcasting System"

http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/29/cbs_wmd/index.html

Here's a DU discussion of it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=872060&mesg_id=872060

:kick:

that DUers can do this week. This is the story that can destroy the fake image that the Bush Administration puts forward to the general public.

:shrug:

Grrrr....

Kick!!!!
:kick:

and the nice secretary said that she had been directed to refer our calls to CBS.

She sounded African American and so am I. I told her it was terrible what they are doing in this election. I told her that it reminded me of slavery - the Masters deciding what the slaves could see, hear and think.

She was really nice and I reminded her to tell her company exactly what I said. She promised that she would. I pray she went home and told her family exactly what I said too.