For weeks now, there has been no shortage of high dudgeon across media circles regarding the Bari Weiss decision to put a hold on a completed 60 Minutes segment, as she determined it to be lacking in sufficient elements. Somehow, the call to have a fully fleshed-out news report has been declared upsetting by those who claim to be intrepid journalists.
Adding to the despair was an announcement that came from the new CBS Evening News host, Tony Dokoupil, who laid out the new policy for that program. As he takes over from the failed experiment of the duo of Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson co-hosting, Dokoupil stated their new format will seek a return to more standardized news reporting.
READ MORE: CBS Evening News Announces Big Change in Approach That's Already Causing the Left to Melt Down
This has only poured more kerosene on the media conflagration that has been burning since the arrival of Bari Weiss as the new head of CBS News. The news division has been roiled for much of the year over the lawsuit brought by President Trump, and then the settlement being reached as a result of the Skydance merger with parent company Paramount. The Weiss decision to pull a segment from 60 Minutes over editing decisions has seen the mewling in the media getting ramped up to pure hysteria.
The critics have been loudly declaring this is all a move to appease Trump and is the dumbing down of the news to appease MAGA. The other side of this complaint is a precious approach: Weiss is sullying the good character of the esteemed credibility of CBS News. This is a chortle-inducing comment that leads to asking a direct question:
Have you even watched CBS News or 60 Minutes lately?!
As a rhetorical response, allow me to say I have, and this is why this current wave of outrage is so hilarious. A rundown of examples of the highly regarded journalism on display is all that is needed to lay bare this fraudulent wailing.
Holy. Shit.
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) October 8, 2024
60 Minutes cut Kamala’s nonsense answer on Israel and replaced it with a completely seperate sentence she said earlier in the interview…
Mixing and matching questions and answers. This isn’t journalism. It’s fraud.pic.twitter.com/onXli46xL6
The Kamala Harris manipulated editing on the Kamala Harris pre-election interview is just the start, but the network reaction was what made things glaringly worse. First, the excuse was that the interview was chopped up due to time constraints. But this was belied by reality. The controversy emerged because CBS first ran promotional snippets of the interview on the Sunday morning talk shows, but when the full segment ran on 60 Minutes, people noticed her response differed from what was shown in the morning, despite having a full broadcast segment at night with vastly more time.
The other issue was the manner in which the network altered its usual practice of providing transcripts and/or the full video of the interview after broadcast. Yes, a two-hour conversation needs to be cut down for a segment in primetime, but this is why the full disclosure was always made later. CBS News did not provide the transcript and video until February of this year, after being compelled by the FCC investigating the controversy. That was just the start of the issues at that news show.
Additionally, we saw Leslie Stahl interviewing a released Israeli hostage, and when the issue of his being starved while in captivity, Ms. Stahl defended the Hamas hostiles by suggesting they might not have had enough food for themselves. In a report on the cuts and closing of USAID, they presented it as a constitutional crisis because the agency was created by an act of Congress. The FACT is, it was created by President Kennedy and operated under the authority of the president and the Executive Branch.
Also on 60 Minutes, they ran a segment that was actually supportive of speech limitation practices in Germany. It sat with members of a group that wants to target what they deem to be offensive speech and then punish it.
In the United States, most of what anyone says, sends, or streams online — even if it's hate-filled or toxic — is protected by the First Amendment as free speech. But Germany is trying to bring some civility to the world wide web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine. In an effort, it says, to protect discourse, German authorities have started prosecuting online trolls. And as we saw, it often begins with a pre-dawn wake-up call from the police.
The reporter was Sharyn Alfonsi — the same one who last month was claiming that Bari Weiss pulling her segment was tantamount to censorship — who just nodded approvingly as the Germans were promoting censorship and jailing those who employed free speech.
Posting or reposting false information in Germany can be a crime, and the punishment for repeat offenders can include jail time. pic.twitter.com/25OLFeLfna
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025
In another report from that program, the one that is claimed to be the pinnacle of unimpeachable journalism, they lied outright. They interviewed a pair of people who were laid off from USAID, amid the DOGE cuts. This pair gave heart-wrenching explanations of the challenges they are facing due to the layoffs. Then they were exposed as not being USAID employees, but high-paid contract consultants, who were connected to former USAID director Samantha Power.
🚨🚨60 Minutes pulled in 2 comms consultants who were never actual employees of USAID and presented them as though they were longtime employees who were fired for lack of "loyalty." 🚨🚨 https://t.co/dxinUlR3T0 pic.twitter.com/nGdEp65DVL
— Eli Steinberg (@HaMeturgeman) February 17, 2025
Apart from that program, the CBS News division had other notable issues. Margaret Brennan, one morning on Face the Nation, tried to tell Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Hitler rose to power when he “weaponized free speech.” Scott MacFarlane had a report where he was upset that Mexican drug cartels were labeled as a terrorist faction, after showing the display at the DEA headquarters of the 100,000 fentanyl deaths in this country.
Gayle King tried to blame a plane crash on Trump administration policies, and the head of Delta Airlines had to guide her through the disqualifying detail that the crash she cited took place in Canada. On the trans athlete issue, the network covered a female fencer who declined a contest because she would not compete against “an opponent she says is trans”; that same opponent competed the year prior in the men's division, so using the trans label is more than suggestive. In a charming move, ahead of the No Kings protests, the unbiased and non-partisan news division provided links to retailers who were selling anti-Trump merchandise.
This is an impressively lengthy list of journalistic problems – and they are all contained in the span of the past year. I would like to offer a challenge to all of those who are trying to say Bari Weiss is ruining things and boast that CBS News and 60 Minutes were unimpeachable sources of stellar journalism:
Just how much worse do you think things can get at this network?!
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
Help us continue to expose their left-wing bias by reading news you can trust. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member