The CBS "Cold Case" Files
By Sherrie Gossett  |  May 13, 2005
In June 1988, Laurence Tisch, then-president of CBS,
Inc, even spoke in support of Accuracy in Media's
resolution presented at the CBS annual meeting, for CBS
to hire an ombudsman or "viewers' advocate" because of
so many flawed stories at the network.  

With Nightline possibly being replaced by a
nightclub-themed "News Cabaret" show, Dan Rather in
pseudo-retirement following 'Memogate', and broadcast
news in general castigated in the new book Bad News,
60-Minutes founder Don Hewitt thinks he has the answer.

In an April 20 interview with The New York Observer's
Joe Hagan, Hewitt pitched the idea of a new PBS show,
which sounds an awful lot like a revamped 60 Minutes:
"With general reality being shoved aside by NBC, ABC
and CBS for contrived reality TV, public television is
in a position to bring back CBS-style news," Hewitt
said. "In that regard, I think an hour of television a
week, devoted to two, three or four well-crafted,
judiciously edited documentaries on a variety of
subjects would be a winner."

"I want to do it 60 Minutes-style," said Hewitt.

Hewitt strikes a tone of idealism with his call for
"reality" in TV news, as opposed to "contrived
reality." However, his broadcast hasn't always meshed
very well with the concept of reality or news. Indeed,
CBS' 60 Minutes has had its share of forays into
"contrived reality" and in so doing has contributed to
a manipulative news culture where material presented to
viewers need not correspond to reality.

Consider 1992, when NBC hit its "electronic Titanic"
over a rigged piece on GM vehicles that seemed to
suggest they caught fire easily. Concealed from viewers
was the fact that incendiary devices had been placed
underneath the vehicles, causing them to burst into
flame. CBS was quick to tell the L.A. Times that "[CBS]
standards forbid the sort of staging that got NBC into
trouble." Hewitt himself told media back then "If that
had happened at '60 Minutes' I'd be looking for a job
tomorrow." He added, "For the life of me, I can't
figure out why anybody would do that. It's not
something anybody at 60 Minutes would do."

Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute,
was quick to expose CBS's hypocrisy, in a devastating
article titled "It Didn't Start With Dateline NBC,"
published in National Review on June 21, 1993. Call it
the CBS "Cold Case" files: incidents of journalistic
malfeasance that have yet to be fully prosecuted.

Olson cited the following incidents:

*   

December 1980: "60 Minutes" reported that the "CJ" Jeep
was dangerously stable, and tipped over easily. Olson
discovered testers had put the Jeeps through 435 runs
to get 8 rollovers. A single Jeep was used 201 times to
get 4 rollovers, suggesting degraded tire tread and
other key safety margins were contributing but
unacknowledged factors. Robot drivers twisted the
steering wheel at rates almost doubling that used in
emergency driving, while gunning the accelerator.
*   

March 1981: An Emmy-winning "60 Minutes" segment showed
scary scenarios of tire rims on heavy trucks flying
off, shredding dummies nearby. Withheld from viewers
was the fact the metal rims had been "modified" to get
them to unravel. Olson discovered ultimately 70% of the
rims had to be been shaved down to get the desired
effect. "Should 60 Minutes have to give back its Emmy?"
asked Olson. "Nah. Maybe they can just take the
statuette to a machine shop and have 70% of it filed off."
*   

In 1986 "60 Minutes" turned its attack journalism on
the Audi 5000, despite the fact Audi had one of the
best safety records on the road. "Sudden acceleration"
was the hobgoblin now, and Olson quipped that the
segment presented Audis as though they had been
possessed: backing into garages, darting into swimming
pools, plowing into bank teller lines, doing everything
but flying on a broomstick - even as drivers were
standing on the brake. Audi lawyers claimed that the
"expert" in the segment, William Rosenbluth, had
drilled a hole in the car's transmission, and attached
a hose leading to tank of compressed air or fluid. Even
though the tank and attached hose were sitting on the
front passenger seat of the Audi, those intrepid
investigative reporters at 60 Minutes managed to keep
any view of the tank off camera and out of the
awareness of viewers.

There are some common threads between these examples of
60 Minutes faux-news. William Rosenbluth, the "expert"
who reportedly modified the Audi, was actually an
expert witness testifying against the carmaker. And the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), whose
dramatic footage "60 Minutes" liked to use, was
actually a group founded by and made up of trial
attorneys. Olson reported that an internal memo from
the IIHS proposed arranging variables in the Jeep
segment "to ensure rollover." Olson also discovered Ben
Kelley's name popped often in the stories. Kelley was
working at the Insurance Institute and later left as a
full-time hired plaintiff's expert and network source.
He also turned up in the Dateline affair.

Is this the sort of "reality based news" the U.S.
taxpayer needs to fund now? We wonder how automobile
manufacturers would feel having to contribute part of
their paycheck for the production of such garbage.

The above-mentioned examples are just the tip of the
CBS iceberg. AIM has been monitoring and reporting on
CBS gaffes longer than any other organization. AIM
staff members have been interviewed by numerous TV news
programs and newspapers about their CBS analyses. In
June 1988, Laurence Tisch, then-president of CBS, Inc,
even spoke in support of Accuracy in Media's resolution
presented at the CBS annual meeting, for CBS to hire an
ombudsman or "viewers' advocate" because of so many
flawed stories at the network.

Even so, CBS went on to defend their questionable
segments. On Larry King's CNN show in 1993, Ed Bradley
defended the Audi and infamous Alar apple scare
stories: "First of all, they're not mistaken. Secondly,
they are true." On the Audi matter he added, "It's not
a figment of our imagination. It actually happened,
whether you believe it or not."

Back to Don Hewitt. Did he ever apologize? On Crossfire
that same year, Hewitt defended the Audi show as well
by asking why had Audi recalled the vehicles after the
60 Minutes episode. Actually, it was to add an
"idiot-proof" device to prevent people from shifting
into gear unless their foot was on the brake.

In addition to contributing a significant library of
"contrived reality" to news history, 60 Minutes and Don
Hewitt have also contributed to the pattern of denial
of wrongdoing by elites at the top of news
organizations, a pattern Dan Rather automatically
adhered to when he uttered false statements on the air
in defense of the "Memogate" segment. Some humility,
apologies and the return of that Emmy might be a good
place to start.  Is Hewitt listening?

--
LP

"A little sunlight is the best disinfectant," Supreme
Court Justice Louis Brandeis commented. "Never
more so than when it exposes towering hypocrisy."