{"id":162174,"date":"2025-07-15T16:55:59","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T00:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=162174"},"modified":"2025-07-15T17:12:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T01:12:40","slug":"cbs-news-anchors-refuse-to-acknowledge-past-and-present-bias-and-continue-asking-the-wrong-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=162174","title":{"rendered":"CBS News Anchors Refuse to Acknowledge Past and Present Bias and Continue Asking the Wrong Question"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SmeBnXv9BGA?si=2FBCgAbBjJkGbkOl\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Mark Halperin:<br \/>\nAnother thing I talked about with the civilian was CBS News and 60 Minutes, which are front and center in the press&#8217;s failure to acknowledge past errors. It\u2019s ironic now to hear people from CBS portray themselves as defenders of the First Amendment and journalism integrity. Recently, the president of CBS News and the head of 60 Minutes resigned in protest over CBS&#8217;s parent company possibly settling with Donald Trump, paying him to acknowledge wrongdoing over something that ironically wasn\u2019t even wrong. CBS needs to settle to avoid interference from the Trump administration as they try to sell the company.<\/p>\n<p>What Trump\u2019s upset about, in this particular instance, wasn&#8217;t liberal bias\u2014it was that CBS edited Kamala Harris\u2019s answers in a 60 Minutes segment to make her sound clearer. That&#8217;s just standard TV editing, not bias. Still, CBS executives are right to protest the settlement but fail to acknowledge their own history of bias.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, something most people probably forgot: in 2020, Trump did a 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl, where Trump brought up Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop. CBS didn\u2019t highlight this exchange, but it was incredibly revealing. Stahl was indignant when Trump tried to discuss the laptop because at the time, as you recall, the media was collaborating with Democrats to label it as Russian disinformation. Listen to Trump\u2019s exchange with Lesley Stahl:<\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump (clip):<br \/>\nI think it\u2019s one of the biggest scandals I&#8217;ve ever seen, and you don&#8217;t cover it.<\/p>\n<p>Lesley Stahl (clip):<br \/>\nWell, because it can&#8217;t be verified.<\/p>\n<p>Trump:<br \/>\nOf course it can be verified.<\/p>\n<p>Stahl:<br \/>\nIt can&#8217;t be verified.<\/p>\n<p>Trump:<br \/>\nWhat can\u2019t be verified?<\/p>\n<p>Stahl:<br \/>\nThe laptop.<\/p>\n<p>Trump:<br \/>\nWhy do you say that?<\/p>\n<p>Stahl:<br \/>\nBecause even the family hasn&#8217;t\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Trump:<br \/>\nThe family on the laptop\u2014he&#8217;s gone into hiding for five days. He&#8217;s gone into hiding.<\/p>\n<p>Stahl:<br \/>\nHe&#8217;s preparing for your debate.<\/p>\n<p>Trump:<br \/>\nOh, it&#8217;s taken him five days to prepare? I doubt it. I doubt it.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Halperin:<br \/>\nTrump can&#8217;t prove it, but many conservatives believe that if the laptop had been covered\u2014not for Hunter\u2019s embarrassing photos but for what it showed about Biden Inc.\u2014without censorship from social media, mainstream media, and Democrats, Trump might have won. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s provable, but many believe it.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, here was Lesley Stahl, a senior correspondent for 60 Minutes, not investigating the laptop, but instead arguing like a DNC spokesperson, claiming, \u201cYou can&#8217;t verify it.\u201d CBS has never, to my knowledge, acknowledged this professional failure, nor explained how this could happen. Unless the press acknowledges past failures, people won&#8217;t believe them when they hold Trump accountable now.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s another 60 Minutes moment\u2014Scott Pelley\u2019s recent graduation speech, implicitly criticizing Trump. Listen closely: every single issue Pelley worries about under Trump, conservatives say occurred under Biden. Here&#8217;s Scott Pelley:<\/p>\n<p>Scott Pelley (clip):<br \/>\nBut in this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. An insidious fear is reaching through our schools, businesses, homes, into our private thoughts\u2014the fear to speak. The Wake Forest class of 1861 didn&#8217;t choose their time; the class of 1941 didn&#8217;t choose; the class of 1968 didn&#8217;t choose. History chose them. Now, history calls you, the class of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Halperin:<br \/>\nTo be clear, Scott Pelley&#8217;s concerns about Trump are legitimate and worth debating. But ignoring that all these concerns\u2014free speech, the rule of law\u2014also occurred under the Biden administration tells millions of Americans the press won&#8217;t hold Democrats accountable to the same standards. CBS correspondents would never give a commencement speech like that during a Democratic administration. They should reconsider how they covered the Hunter Biden laptop and Biden&#8217;s mental decline.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, even now, with Jake Tapper\u2019s and Alex Thompson\u2019s book out, the media keeps asking Democrats the wrong question: &#8220;Did you privately see Biden\u2019s cognitive decline?&#8221; Stop asking Democrats that question. They&#8217;re never going to confess. The right question is: \u201cSince you saw Biden\u2019s decline publicly, why didn&#8217;t you do anything about it?\u201d And ask yourselves in the media: &#8220;What role did we play in covering it up?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s Bill Clinton interviewed by CBS News about Biden, again asked the wrong question:<\/p>\n<p>CBS Interviewer (clip):<br \/>\nDid you ever have a moment where you thought maybe Biden was unfit to run?<\/p>\n<p>Bill Clinton (clip):<br \/>\nNo, I thought he was a good president. The only concern was could anybody do that job until they were 86. We&#8217;d had several talks; I never walked away thinking, &#8220;He can&#8217;t do this anymore.&#8221; He was always on top of his brief.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Halperin:<br \/>\nMaybe privately Biden was sharp around Clinton, but Bill Clinton watches C-SPAN. He saw what everyone else saw. Again, stop asking Democrats if they saw decline privately\u2014ask why they ignored what we all saw publicly.<\/p>\n<p>If the media wants credibility back, stop trying to run out the clock, avoiding admitting your massive failure. They&#8217;re calling this the \u201cbiggest scandal in American media history,\u201d yet the media blames only a few Biden aides and other Democrats, ignoring their own role.<\/p>\n<p>This is why the civilian I spoke with is turning to programs like this one\u2014something I appreciate. How can you trust a news organization to cover Trump tough but fairly when they covered the previous administration with their heads in the sand, simply to avoid helping Trump win, and were intimidated by Biden&#8217;s team? Unless they come clean about what went wrong, and explain how they&#8217;ll do better, it\u2019s appalling.<\/p>\n<p>People must demand explanations from news organizations if they want our attention, subscriptions, and business. Lesley Stahl never owned up to the laptop fiasco. Scott Pelley never addressed the abuses under Biden&#8217;s administration. And until they do, trust won\u2019t return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Halperin: Another thing I talked about with the civilian was CBS News and 60 Minutes, which are front and center in the press&#8217;s failure to acknowledge past errors. It\u2019s ironic now to hear people from CBS portray themselves as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=162174\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162174"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162182,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162174\/revisions\/162182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}