Former 60 Minutes Producer Mapes: Benghazi Story Aimed At "Obsessed" Right-Wing Audience

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

Source: Media Matters

Former 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes, who was fired for her role in a controversial 2004 story about President Bush's service in the Air National Guard, accused CBS News of pandering to a right-wing audience with her former program's recent Benghazi report, for which the network has been criticized and forced to retract...

Still, Mapes stressed that "what is concerning to me is the reason they went after that story in the first place. ... It so concerns me that it appears that story was done to appeal to a conservative element in the audience; that's not the way you should choose your stories."

Mapes was among several staffers, including former anchorman Dan Rather, who lost their jobs when documents used in the 2004 story could not be authenticated. Rather could not be reached for comment.

Read more: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/11/08/former-60-minutes-producer-mapes-benghazi-story/196811

[Bluzmann57]

1. File that under "No shit Sherlock"

The rw will never ever let this die, no matter what. It's likely that 50 years from now, rw text books will still be talking shit about Benghazi and how Obama wasn't born in the USA, among other things.

[Thor_MN]

14. Your post fits perfectly with what I was going to say,

That the target audience was not just cons-ervative, but also cons-tipated.

[libdem4life]

2. Apologies need to addressed to the President and Secretary of State at the time who were slandered

along side admissions of guilt to the duped audience. It wasn't botched. It was a willful lie.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

4. Absolutely. Thank you.

I didn't post my own comments to the article, but I agree with you 100%.

Yes, the slanted 60 Minutes story was a deliberate and willful hoax.

CBS is not off the hook until they PUBLICLY apologize to:

President Obama
Secretary of State Clinton
and the entire Obama Administration.

Meanwhile, wingnut Lindsey Graham should have his rant about not being able to interview this liar shoved down his throat along with his threat of shutdown of all presidential appointments.

Better yet, the Senate should subpoena Davies and make Senator Graham sit through the entire questioning. That would be a delightful ratings boost for CSPAN2.

Thanks for posting.

[hue]

28. Thanks for this from me as well. Yes the Benghazi debacle is a deliberate/willful act of slander.

[JNelson6563]

29. Yeah! What they ^^^^ said!

[Kingofalldems]

3. And then the name Mary Matalin comes up

[PSPS]

5. It was more of an advertising cross promotion

Of course, it was targeting the RW audience, but only because it is the same audience CBS is targeting to sell the book it is publishing. The same thing happens all the time on every media outlet. Anytime there is a "guest," they are hawking something, often a book. They will usually be introduced as so-and-so, "author of" such-and-such.

Today, there are no real news programs at all. They are all just mediums of advertising. If you pay attention, you will notice that virtually every "news" item is a thinly-veiled ad.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

7. "but money never came up," says Lara... LOL

Even after the claims from other news outlets that the hoax creator was peddling the story, Lara sticks to her story in the non-apology that "money never came up."

Obviously it was just a coincidence that CBS was publishing the liar's book.

After all, how could leaders of the featured frontline show from a major TV "news" producer have any clue that they had already paid a liar to publish his book?

Sorry for being snarky, but it is so hard to follow this CBS total disaster without snickering.

Thanks for posting.

[cosmicone]

10. Lara Logan should be fired n/t

[femmocrat]

15. I wouldn't miss her one bit.

I never watch any of her reports. I had the show on that night and put her segment on mute. In retrospect, if I had know what a disaster it would be, I should have watched it.

[KAESNO2]

31. Lara Logan got gang-raped in every orifice ...

... in Tahrir Square. She also got a nipple bit off. She healed, she shook off the trauma, and she went back to work. That takes courage. She deserves a little more credit from you.

[cosmicone]

32. and what has that got to do with poor journalism

and publishing falsehoods to appease the right wing?

By the way, she never claimed she was raped -- she was just severely groped. In either case, it is not a license to do a shoddy job.

Would you forgive a neurosurgeon for negligently making you a vegetable just because she was raped/groped?

[KAESNO2]

35. Oh I see, it was just some harmless feels.

The slut was probably asking for it.

And her nipple? That just broke off by mistake.

Hate women much, cosmicone?

[cosmicone]

36. Don't put words in there that I didn't use.

I never said she was asking for it. She denied the nipple being bit off -- that is an urban legend.

As a Hillary Clinton supporter against Barack Obama in the primaries in 2008, I doubt I could be considered a woman hater.

You need to take lessons in right-wing trolling. Enjoy your stay here.

[Doctor_J]

6. Duh!

"We're not like Fox - we apologize for our lies and smears"

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

8. ONLY after someone discovers there was a paper trail...

Otherwise we bull our way through for a week or more as loudly and publicly as we can, STRONGLY defending our integrity, our story, and the reliability of our "witness" hoping that the reputation of CBS will quiet all questioners.

I think I am more disturbed about how CBS "handled" this than the fact that they did it in the first place.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Just CANCEL Your CABLE TV

I gave it up 18 months ago, and haven't missed it.

I catch a few shows online. I have evenings free, without
commercials, to play music, read, browse the internet, talk
with family, relax, bake, and think.

At $10,000+++ per decade, I think I made the right choice.

[subterranean]

22. I finally did that yesterday!

I'll still receive all the major networks using an antenna, and just about anything else I might want to watch is available through other sources.

[JDPriestly]

24. We signed up for cable in 2012 and signed off cable shortly after the elections.

The regular cable fare (we couldn't get Comedy Central or Rachel Maddow or the good programming we wanted for the price we wanted to pay) was just distasteful and stupid. I don't see how anyone watches it.

It's a ROKU and Netflix and some Amazon deal for us. We like to pick what we watch.

[reACTIONary]

33. Never had it, never will. nt

[Berlum]

11. CBS (R) is descending to the level of Fox (R)

Stop lying to the American people.

[Ratty]

12. Fascinating article on 60 Minutes in the National Review

From 2004. National Review of course thought 60 Minutes was biased toward liberals.

All in the Family: Who says 60 Minutes doesn’t pay for interviews?

http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/preston_regan200404020931.asp

CBS, child of Viacom — and sister of publishing giant Simon & Schuster, cable network MTV, and Hollywood studio Paramount — holds a handful of aces when pursuing the big media "get" of the moment. The corporate family can dangle the world in front of anyone it wants to land badly enough, using its publishing, movie, music, and even news empire to land its quarry and generate a financial bonanza.

In June 2003, CBS and its corporate family went after rescued soldier Jessica Lynch as soon as she could sit up and sign a contract. The conglomerate competed against the usual media heavyweights, but it offered something the others couldn't — the ability to create a multimedia perfect storm. While Katie Couric offered the photogenic Pfc. a spot on Today and an armful of patriotic books, and while all Diane could manage was to send Lynch a picture of her own West Virginia home, the Viacom octopus rolled out a battery of offers: Lynch got offered a book deal through Simon & Schuster, she got an offer to sell the rights to her story to CBS for a made-for-TV movie or to Paramount for a feature film, and MTV offered Lynch and her friends a spot on Total Request Live. And to top it all off, she was offered a guest spot on CBS's flagship "news" program, 60 Minutes. After she defected to Knopf for the book and NBC for the movie, 60 Minutes ran a story opposite her NBC movie that effectively debunked the Lynch-as-Annie Oakley meme that had turned her into a war hero. Private Lynch, it seems, didn't play by the Viacom rules.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

13. Great information. Thanks for posting :)

[MyNameGoesHere]

16. If it was aimed at teabaggers shouldn't it have been a cartoon? eom

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

18. Or at least Co-authored by Rand Paul n/t

[SunSeeker]

27. Rand Paul authors stuff?

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

30. Well, he puts his name on stuff. Doesn't that count?

[JEFF9K]

17. I guess the right isn't satisfied with ...

... a total monopoly on talk radio, Fox "News" Channel, and the conservative slant that comes from all media depending on corporate sponsorship.

[tavernier]

19. Sorry don't feed the bulldog.

I love my hubby's old down on the farm sayings.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

20. OK

Your hubby is great. Well said

[tavernier]

25. He said to say thanks and added

Does that lady know how much a pound of shit is worth these days? Maybe she should ask for a raise.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

26. You need to quote your hubby more often :)

[Hissyspit]

21. That was obvious. ...and embarrassing.

I turned it off after 30 seconds disgusted. I knew exactly what was happening.

[Dawson Leery]

23. "60 Minutes on Fox News"

[Rain Mcloud]

34. Defining Propaganda

This is from Wiki,i did not(could not) write this.
I do believe it applies:

description by Richard Alan Nelson: "Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels. A propaganda organization employs propagandists who engage in propagandism—the applied creation and distribution of such forms of persuasion."[5]