Bari Weiss takes staff of 60 minutes back to journalism school

One son majored in journalism at the university of Minnesota.  Although he never wrote for a newspaper or TV, he found what he learned (focus on the important, be brief, be clear, get the facts straight) useful in whatever he did — MicroSoft, VH1, MTV, MFA at USC in animation, teaching it in Hong Kong and Taiwan, etc. etc.

So it was particularly interesting to read Bari Weiss’s reasoning as to why she cut a 60 minutes program 2 days ago.  Basically she listed the reasons the program was journalistically incompetent and effectively sent its creators back to journalism school.  Here is an exact copy of what she wrote to them. My comments  are interspersed in bold

“Hi all,

I’m writing with specific guidance on what I’d like for us to do to advance the CECOT story  (About the horrific prison conditions in San Salvidor the US sent Venezuelans). I know you’d all like to see this run as soon as possible; I feel the same way. But if we run the piece as is, we’d be doing our viewers a disservice.

• Last month many outlets, most notably The New York Times, exposed the horrific conditions at CECOT. Our story presents more of these powerful testimonies—and putting those accounts into the public record is valuable in and of itself. But if we’re going to run another story about a topic that has by now been much-covered we need to advance it (you’re beating a dead horse and adding nothing new). Among the ways to do so: does anyone in the administration or anyone prominent who defended the use of the Alien Enemies Act now regret it in light of what these Venezuelans endured at CECOT? That’s a question I’d like to see asked and answered (here’s one thing you should have done but didn’t do).

•  At present, we do not present the administration’s argument for why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT (did you ask, or did you decide it was beneath contempt). What we have is Karoline Leavitt’s soundbite claiming they are evildoers in America (rapists, murderers, etc.). But isn’t there much more to ask in light of the torture that we are revealing? Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don’t tend to be shy. I realize we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record.
• The data we present paints an incongruent picture. Of the 252 Venezuelans sent to CECOT, we say nearly half have no criminal histories (an example of antiAdministration framing which is why few believe 60 minutes and the legacy press in general). In other words, more than half do have criminal histories. We should spend a beat explaining this (why didn’t you?) . We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in America for violent offenses. But what about charged? My point is that we should include as much as we can possibly know and understand about these individuals.
• Secretary Noem’s trip to CECOT. We report that she took pictures and video there with MS-13 gang members, not TdA members, with no comment from her or her staff about what her goal on that trip was, or what she saw there, or if she had or has concerns about the treatment of detainees like the ones in our piece. (You didn’t even ask hard questions to Noem or the administration) I also think that the ensuing analysis from the Berkeley students is strange. The pictures are alarming; we should include them. But what does the analysis add?
• We need to do a better job of explaining the legal rationale by which the administration detained and deported these 252 Venezuelans to CECOT. It’s not as simple as Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act and being able to deport them immediately. And that isn’t the administration’s argument. The admin has argued in court that detainees are due “judicial review”—and we should explain this, with a voice arguing that Trump is exceeding his authority under the relevant statute, and another arguing that he’s operating within the bounds of his authority (again something you should have reported on but didn’t). There’s a genuine debate here. If we cut down Kristi Noem analysis we’d have the time.

My general view here is that we do our viewers the best service by presenting them with the full context they need to assess the story. In other words, I believe we need to do more reporting here.

I am eager and available to help. I tracked down cell numbers for Homan and Miller and sent those along. Please let me know how I can support you (even though you belong back in journalism school).

Yours,

Ba”

I’ve never liked 60 minutes, and purely for medical reasons.  Back when I was a practicing clinical neurologist ’72 – ’00, they were a fount of medical misinformation.  I spent a fair of time cleaning up after the elephants.  Particularly loathsome was the time they argued that mercury in fillings caused multiple sclerosis.  They said it once.  It took me multiple one on ones with my frightened MS patients to try to clear things up.