Young people won’t know it, but there was a day — not too long ago, at least for me — when you just didn’t miss “60 Minutes.” On Monday morning, at the water cooler (I said I was old!), everyone was talking about the latest installment.
The news show was born in 1968, hosted by real newsmen Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner. Don Hewitt, who had been a producer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, ran the show. Over the years, the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, the show featured a veritable who’s who of non-fake journalists.
But that was then. Nowadays, “60 Minutes” stars highly partisan celebrity “journalists” like Anderson Cooper, Norah O’Donnell, Scott Pelley and the like.
Then there’s Leslie Stahl, 81, who has been with CBS for 52 years. It doesn’t get more partisan than Stahl.
In the show’s latest installment on Sunday, Stahl opened a biased piece on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) with this: “It’s rare for a member of the House of Representatives to become well known nationally, especially someone in only their second term. But Marjorie Taylor Greene, MTG, is as famous as they get. She’s gained her national celebrity, some say notoriety, with a sharp tongue and some pretty radical views.”
Well. That’s certainly not the intro you’d expect for another three-letter initialism: AOC, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). But it’s entirely OK for the media to call conservatives notorious and radical. Imagine the caterwauling you’d hear from the MSM if you called AOC that!
Oh, then Stahl dropped that MTG “has a history of believing in conspiracy theories.” Real journalism, there.
Stahl jumped right in during the interview proper, asking Greene why she “styled” herself “after Donald Trump.” Then, using the old “some say” trope, Stahl said, “many consider Marjorie Taylor Greene’s behavior outlandish, even thuggish.”
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For good measure, she threw in that “MAGA activists and right-wing media eat it up.”
Had enough “journalism” yet? Too bad, we’ve got more.
Stahl told the lawmaker that “economic and financial catastrophe” (yes, both economic and financial) could occur if Congress doesn’t raise the federal debt ceiling.
“You know, what is an economic catastrophe is, again, the people that have spent $31 trillion that forced this situation to happen,” Greene said, noting that both Republicans and Democrats are to blame.
Stahl mansplained a bit, then asked MTG if she’d be willing to “raise some taxes.”
“I don’t think we have a revenue problem in Washington. We have a spending problem,” the congresswoman said.
Stahl literally rolled her eyes. With the disdain only achievable by Manhattan limousine liberals, Stahl said: “You know something, that’s glib. That’s glib. That’s — what does that mean?”
MTG explained but not to Stahl’s liking. The journalist then opined that there are things MTG says that are “over the top, like the Democrats are a party of pedophiles.”
“I would definitely say so. They support grooming children,” Greene said.
Stahl rolled her eyes again. Then she puffed out her cheeks and blew out a scornful breath. “They are not pedophiles. Why would you say that?” Stahl said.
“Democrats support, even Joe Biden the president himself, supports children being sexualized and having transgender surgeries, sexualizing children is what pedophiles do to children,” MTG said.
And less than a minute later, as Greene sought to explain further, the edited piece just drowns her out with Stahl talking over her.
Stahl dropped some more disdain about “flyover country” when she said of MTG that “most of her constituents in her conservative, largely white, working-class district agree with her on the issues and especially like the way she fights for her beliefs.” Imagine that, constituents agreeing with the representative they elected to Congress.
At the end of the segment, Stahl sought to paint MTG as the face of the GOP. “You want to bring the Republican Party closer to your views. You want to bring the country closer to your views,” she said.
“The question for her and the country is: Can she expand her brash MTG brand beyond the Right-wing populists base?”
There you have it, “journalism” in 2023. And yet another reason you don’t need to watch “60 Minutes.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.