Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian ; The loss of editorial freedom at 60 Minutes is a sorry milestone for US media
"Pelley said that, to date, no story had been killed but that Owens “felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires”.
Pelley’s comments were picked up widely, and now the world knows that viewers can no longer fully trust what they see on the Sunday evening show that has done such important and groundbreaking journalism for decades.
Of course, as with so many of the red alerts mentioned above – lawsuits, threats, changes in long-held practices that protect the public’s right to know – the problem involves Donald Trump’s overweening desire to control the media. Controlling the message is what would-be authoritarians always do.
Trump sued 60 Minutes for $20bn a few months ago, claiming unfair and deceptive editing of an interview with his then rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris. And his newly appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, took an aggressive approach by reopening an investigation into CBS over supposed distortion of the news. The editing of the Harris interview, by all reasonable accounts, followed standard practices.
What has happened with 60 Minutes is a high-octane version of what is happening everywhere in Trump 2.0.
Those who could stand up to Trump’s bullying are instead doing what scholars of authoritarianism say must be avoided, if democracy is to be salvaged. They are obeying in advance.
Not everyone, of course. It’s inspiring to see prominent institutions – Harvard and other universities, many law firms, Georgetown law school and the Associated Press – refusing to buckle."
