What did CBS’s 60 Minutes actually report?

[Mosby]

After viewing CBS’s 60 Minutes segment on “Christians of the Holy Land,” I was struck by a question.

My question wasn’t how the CBS fact-checkers could let a number of flat-out wrong statements be reported, or how they could let controversial statements from the interviewees stand unchallenged. It wasn’t even a question about the lack of parity in the interviews.

I wanted to know where the actual substance was. What is it that CBS actually “reported?”

snip

Simon doesn’t actually explain the mechanics of why Christians are leaving the Holy Land, or how Israel’s actions affect Christians specifically.

That’s because such an explanation would require facts. And Simon and his team haven’t got many of those.

Which raises another question: How far has the journalistic standard fallen that 10-odd minutes of tired Middle-East clichés qualify as an “investigative report?”

Where are the academic experts on history, demographics, sociology and religion? Where are the charts of facts and figures? Where is any research at all?

If there is only one complaint allowed of this episode, it isn’t an accusation of bias or misreporting of facts — it is the non-reporting.

The sheer laziness of 60 Minutes apparent in the segment should be appalling not just to its viewers, but should be cause for anger upstairs at CBS’s management. What is it, after all, that Bob Simon and his team are paid for? It cannot be to simply repeat an interviewee’s claims as fact and go home, job done.

Much more at:
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-did-cbss-60-minutes-actually-report/

Segments like Simon's is why I stopped watching 60 minutes years ago.

[BudT]

1. If the question is --

"What is it, after all, that Bob Simon and his team are paid for? "

The answer is: Eyeballs. I was reading an article a few days ago (can't remember but I'll look it up if anyone wants a link) that explained that when 60 Minutes first aired it was a time when network news was not paying for its airtime (compared to more profitable programming) and cost far more to produce than that more profitable programming. 60 Minutes changed that and became a profit center for the news organization there. 60 Minutes allowed CBS to profit from the news division again. But to do it they had to redesign the product.

And that's been the story with virtually all news sources. People have a low interest in facts. But we do enjoy having our ideological buttons pushed. That's why Fox and their lineup is popular with Republicans and Rachel Maddow is popular with Democrats. It's the emotional charge they reliably deliver to their demographics that keeps those viewers returning day after day. And those growing numbers of eyeballs are what allow the networks to charge more for their advertising slots.

The "Israel Bad" meme of course causes racing emotions and surges in heart rate for many Americans these days no matter which side we are on. It's only natural that CBS would take advantage of Bob Simon's far left (progressive) alignment on this issue as a sure bet to increase their ad revenue and ratings among the networks. Balanced programming on a complex issue like this would be a bore for most. Antisemitism is the gift of a million practical uses that just keeps on giving. I'm just glad Walter Cronkite never had to deal with this final total commercialization of news and its transformation into an emotional commodity.