[This article now cross-published by Salon…]
In the wake of 60 Minutes‘ bogus Benghazi report, starring an eye-witness who, as it turns out, appears to have completely lied about being there during the 2012 attack on the U.S. compound which resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. personnel, rightwing reporter Lara Logan and her producer will be taking a “leave of absence” of unspecified length.
Via Michael Calderone at HuffPo…
“As Executive Producer, I am responsible for what gets on the air,” Fager wrote in a memo obtained by The Huffington Post. “I pride myself in catching almost everything, but this deception got through and it shouldn’t have.”
See Calderone for the text of the memo from Fager, which includes the summary of the internal report by Fager’s underling Al Ortiz, Executive Director of Standards and Practices at CBS News. Fager is both CBS News Chairman and the Executive Producer of 60 Minutes. Apparently, he has not required himself to take a leave of absence, even though, as Executive Producer, he is ultimately responsible for what goes on the air.
In the memo, Fager describes what happened as “a regrettable mistake”…
Among the errors in production of the report, according to the summary of Ortiz’ report, was that the account of Logan’s faux swashbuckling “witness” Dylan Davies — a security contractor who claimed to have scaled a 12-foot wall at the compound before taking out one of the attackers with the butt of his rifle during the onslaught — could have easily been discovered by CBS News as fraudulent before the report ever went to air.
“The fact that the FBI and the State Department had information that differed from the account Davies gave to 60 Minutes was knowable before the piece aired,” Ortiz writes. “But the wider reporting resources of CBS News were not employed in an effort to confirm his account.”
As progressive blogger Heather Parton, better known as “Digby”, revealed earlier this month (before discussing it with us on The BradCast) Logan harbors hard right “war hawk” proclivities, and had called publicly for the U.S. to “exact revenge” for the Benghazi attack just one month after it was carried out. That point was also noted by Ortiz in the summary of his internal report as another one, of several errors made by CBS and 60 Minutes in their production of their now discredited story…
Before it all fell apart, Logan and CBS News had stood by the story for almost two weeks, claiming that they had spent more than a year working on the story, and had interviewed some 100 sources to ensure its accuracy. Almost none of the known problems with the October 27, 2013 report were fully acknowledged by Logan during her tepid 97-second on-air “apology” at the very end of the November 10, 2013 60 Minutes broadcast.
Logan and McClellan’s temporary dismissal at CBS is in contrast to the permanent removal of four veteran producers and correspondent Dan Rather, who was also the anchor of CBS Evening News at the time, after a 2004 60 Minutes II report on George W. Bush’s absence from service in the Texas Air National Guard caused an uproar among the rightwing blogosphere. Though the authenticity of one of the documents used in that report has never been verified, the substance of the report was not disputed by the Bush Administration and has since been confirmed to be true.
Meanwhile, Fox “News” — which relied, in a number of stories, on the very same fraudulent source used by 60 Minutes — has failed to apologize, correct or retract any of their own bogus reports from that source. Fox has been a hub for fraudulent reporting on the Benghazi incident for more than a year. Should Logan not return to CBS, we suspect there will be a job offer waiting for her at Fox “News”, where her politics will be warmly welcomed along with the many other discredited “journalists” who are now proudly featured on the pretend “news” network.
Is she blonde enough for Fox? Come on, they have standards….
Not only was Rather’s report “since confirmed to be true” it was also PREVIOUSLY confirmed to be true, in 2000 in a Boston Globe investigative piece. The Globe report was ignored by the rest of media. Rather’s report added some detail, but the main thing that was new was that it was bringing the story to TELEVISION and to a network headed by supporters of the Bush family. Rather paid the price for telling an “inconvenient truth” not for spreading a falsehood.
Look for her to show up on Fox. The so called preacher on Fox says she is a hero. There is a very thin line between a preacher and a con artist and I know where I would put the Huckster.
Maybe while she has so much free time during her “leave of absence”, she can “make up” another story with another fake witness, with some help from “60 Minutes”.
Soul Rebel @ #1: good point: next stop FOX “news”.
See: Glenn Beck, Juan Williams, Sarah Palin, Tony Snow (RIP), Karl Rove, Kristol, etc…etc…
Randy -Spot on! Back then I had the blog “Political Physics,” and having numerous sources in TX from my decades living there, it was common knowledge how how much of a party guy W was, how he got the cushy slot with the Guard, and how he hadn’t shown up for duty.
Clearly Rather was suckered into going with a document HE DIDN’T NEED. He was set up. Just before the bait showed up, he had the story nailed. All the proof was already there, from written records of W skipping drug tests by working at Daddy’s buddy’s election campaign and other well documented dodges, along with video footage of an insider (I believe it was Ben Barnes, a true heavyweight – look him up) who definitely knew W’s history and had no problem naming names.
There is no doubt that Dan Rather was set up by someone pulling some major strings to get him to bite at that kind of bait the way he did. To my mind, there was only one person who could have pulled that off. The same guy that polished his dirty tricks of character assassination in Alabama before he went on to steal two national elections.
And to mention Lara Logan’s name as somehow in the same class of journalistic skill as Rather is going through a looking glass….