There’s nothing worse, we’re often told, than a crooked cop. And the longest serving crooked cop in the history of TV journalism — or what’s left of it — is the most celebrated program of that high-minded genre, CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
As a national watchdog — probing for inside traders, double-dealers, scam-artists, the interest-conflicted and the ethically compromised at the top of government, law enforcement and business — “60 Minutes” consistently cons the public by diving off shelves that hold CBS goods.
Heck, it’s time “60 Minutes” subtitled the program “The CBS/Simon & Schuster Book of the Month Show.”
Astonishing, ain’t it, how the show for years has been able to get first crack at “exclusives” with authors of new books written while the author was in the employ of CBS’s publishing division.
Last Sunday, it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who “chose” “60 Minutes” to be the first to hear him speak about his new autobiography, “Total Recall,” published by Simon & Schuster and released for sale, coincidentally enough, the very next day!
But Schwarzenegger’s merely the latest on a long list of heavily promoted “60 Minutes” episodes that pushed CBS’s inventory, infomercials all dressed up as broadcast journalism.
“60 Minutes” somehow was able to land Walter Isaacson to discuss his new book about Steve Jobs.
The show, at least twice, somehow was able to land Bob Woodward to chat up his new inside-Washington books.
Same with Tiger Woods, who “60 Minutes” somehow was able to land for an exclusive — in conjunction with the release of his new book.
All were Simon & Schuster numbers.
As an award-winning whistle-blower, “60 Minutes” for years has betrayed honest, unfettered journalism.
In 1998, it profiled International Olympic Committee bossman Juan Antonio Samaranch in a highly unflattering manner, asking the Spaniard about his status as an unrepentant World War II fascist.
Yet, such was known years before then. Why did it take “60 Minutes” so long to see that torch burning at the top of Olympus? Well, 1998 was the year that CBS lost Olympic rights.
The show’s warm profiles of sports and entertainment figures — football coaches, singers, actors, pro golfers — have a funny habit of appearing right before those folks perform on CBS.
The smell of the sell, Sunday nights at 7 on CBS, is always on the wind, then on the air. And it’s often posed — framed — as exclusive, hard-hitting news. It would make for one hell of an investigative piece for a program such as “60 Minutes.”
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While the US news media and Obama administration have been quick to condemn the maker of that anti-Muslim film/video, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, as a fringe lunatic and parole violator. . .
And while Arabic-Islamic leaders represent to their followers that Nakoula is typical of the Muslim-hating Western world. . .
Lost to the political pandering here, and the sustaining madness there, is that Nakoula is an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian.
Now if there’s anyone who has a beef with the new, Islam-enriched Egypt, it’s a Coptic Christian, whose co-religionists — what’s left of them — have been targeted by radical Muslims for extermination.
But that’s not worth the media’s or the White House’s attention; that might upset those Muslims who, regardless of facts, would be encouraged to be outraged.
As new Egyptian President and Muslim Brotherhood-sanctioned Mohamed Morsi now gives Western TV interviews claiming that videos such as Nakoula’s reflect American standards, I’m not aware that his interviewers have told him that he’s all wet. That might end the interview.
So, then, it would be out of the question to think that any of these free-world journalists would ask Morsi about whether Nakoula, as an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian, might have a legit gripe with Allah.