Former CBS News staffers are calling for the network to launch an independent investigation into “60 Minutes” after the left-wing news program deceptively edited remarks made by Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview.
“I think there should be an outside investigation,” one former CBS News journalist told the New York Post this week. “Obviously, there’s a problem here. If they care about journalistic integrity, they would conduct an investigation or release the full transcript.”
They said the fact that Harris’ two responses to the same question were “so different” made it imperative that the network be transparent and release the entire interview.
A source inside the organization told the newspaper that the way it edited Harris’ response was “biased.”
“Their credibility has been called into question and their impartiality has been called into question,” the source said. “Don’t you need a full-throated review of what went wrong?”
“The stakes are too high,” they added. “It’s a presidential election. Trump is asking for the transcript and journalists are asking for answers.”
The controversy happened when host Bill Whitaker was discussing with Harris the United States’ financial support for Israel in its war against genocidal Islamic terrorists in the region.
“But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” Whitaker said to Harris.
In a promotional clip that was posted by CBS News on Sunday, Harris responded to that statement from Whitaker by saying: “The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
However, when the full interview was published by the network on Monday night, that statement from Harris was nowhere to be found. Those words were not included anywhere in the television broadcast, nor did they appear in the interview when it was posted on YouTube, the interview’s transcript, or the show’s “Overtime” segment.
Instead, on television and in the interview posted online, Whitaker’s identical statement that “it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening” is followed by Harris saying: “We are not gonna stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
