What Is CBS News Hiding?

As we recently outlined, it has been a damaging, credibility-harming few 
weeks for CBS News.  The network violated its own debate rules with a 
disputed-to-misleading 'fact check' of JD Vance at the Vice Presidential 
debate, then cut off his microphone as he calmly picked apart their 
assertion.  Their morning show was thrown into chaos when some employees 
melted down over an anchor asking pointed, tough questions of an anti-
Israel zealot, resulting in angry recriminations, tears, and a series of 
embarrassing leaks.  Then there was the curious 60 Minutes edit of Kamala 
Harris' answer regarding US-Israeli relations, which looked completely 
different in a teaser clip, compared to what aired on the broadcast 
itself.  As a refresher, here's the side-by-side juxtaposition:

What 60 Minutes viewers saw was more succinct and far less rambling and 
vacuous than the answer that was released ahead of the broadcast.  It is 
true that news organizations will sometimes cut down longer answers due to 
time constraints. But snipping out her word salad, which had been 
ridiculed online, was a suspicious choice to some people.  The best way to 
examine and determine whether the second, 'for-air' CBS edit was 
journalistically defensible is to look at the full exchange, then consider 
how the program cut it down.  If the full video isn't forthcoming, for 
whatever reason, then the unedited and un-redacted transcript would 
suffice.  But for reasons that are inexplicable to me, 60 Minutes has been 
withholding the transcript for more than two weeks.  As former CBS 
correspondent Catherine Herridge keeps pointing out, publishing entire 
transcripts of major or significant interviews has been a common practice, 
including in her own experience:

Releasing the full unedited transcript is consistent with journalistic 
transparency and it stands behind the integrity of the entire Kamala 
Harris edit, not just the clips under scrutiny. CBS has the ability to 
immediately settle these questions and address merits of FCC complaint 
alleging “news distortion.” There is ample precedent at CBS News for 
releasing full, unedited transcripts. 2019 interview, Attorney General 
Bill Barr [with Jan Crawford].  2020 interview, President Trump [with 
Herridge].  60 Minutes released its full interview transcript with Fed 
Chair Jerome Powell.

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On Sunday, the program released a statement addressing the controversy.  
Remaining silent would have been better than this deeper-hole-digging 
exercise, in my view:

Former President Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceitful editing 
of our Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false. 
60 Minutes gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a 
longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same 
answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any 
interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to 
be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes 
was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 
21-minute-long segment. Remember, Mr. Trump pulled out of his interview 
with 60 Minutes and the vice president participated. Our long-standing 
invitation to former President Trump remains open. If he would like to 
discuss the issues facing the nation and the Harris interview, we would be 
happy to have him on 60 Minutes.

They are pushing back against accusations from Trump, which are fueled by 
their own opacity. If their edits are ethical and representative, 
transparency would vindicate them and put and end to all of this. Their 
continued refusal to just show America the complete transcript is 
suspicious. They only aired a fraction of what was reportedly a 45-minute 
interview. It would be a massive scandal if 60 Minutes were hiding 
something, in order to help their preferred candidate. I'm not alleging 
that's what is happening here, but as I said on Fox, the longer they play 
these games and decline to clear things up by publishing the video or 
transcript, the worse it looks for them: 

There is no acceptable rationale against letting the public at least read 
the full interview between a CBS News journalist and one of the two people 
who will be the next President of the United States. By the way, here's a 
reminder of why Trump eschewed tradition and nixed his 60 Minutes sit-
down:

During the interview [with Trump] — which aired on Oct. 25, the week 
before the 2020 election, and garnered nearly 17 million views — longtime 
anchor [Leslie Stahl] flat-out denied that the Biden family was under any 
sort of scandal at all. The interview was so combative that the Trump 
campaign released the full raw footage before network publication. “He’s 
in the midst of a scandal,” Trump said in reference to emails from the 
laptop revealing Joe Biden was lying about involvement with Hunter’s 
overseas business ventures. “He’s not,” Stahl said, interrupting the 
president to outright dismiss the criticism. “He’s not, no.” Stahl went on 
to deny that then-Vice President Joe Biden spied on the Trump campaign in 
2016, and claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop couldn’t be verified.

I think it would have still been a good idea for Trump to have done the 
CBS interview, but it's clear that he felt like 60 Minutes had wrongly put 
its finger on the 'misinformation' scale in helping to cover up the Hunter 
Biden laptop saga. The supression of that accurate prior to a major 
election was disgraceful, and involved a shocking array of collusion. 
Whether or not Trump just wanted an excuse to bypass 60 Minutes, it's not 
unreasonable for someone to demand some measure of accountability for how 
the Big Tech/'news' alliance handled that situation.  Why reward outlets 
that haven't earned trust?  I'll leave you with another news 
organization's attempt to 'fact check' Donald Trump's trolling over 
whether Kamala Harris ever worked at McDonald's:

I have no idea what's true about Harris' employment history with the fast 
food giant, but it does seem odd that there's no proof of it whatsoever 
beyond the say so of her campaign and some vague recollections of one 
friend.  It's also strange that she apparently never mentioned this 
relatable biographical detail in her public life or political career 
before she started running for president in 2019.  Regardless, Trump's 
stint at the Golden Arches over the weekend was a political masterstroke 
and a viral sensation that worked on several levels.  Which is the real 
reason that critics are upset:

UPDATE - CBS continues to cover itself in glory, on multiple fronts:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2024/10/23/what-is-cbs-news-
hiding-n2646523