The CBS News “60 Minutes” program gave no indication that it would correct or withdraw the widely contested report that suggested Florida Governor Ron DeSantis R. gave the Publix supermarket chain preferable treatment to offer the vaccine against the coronavirus based on your donations to your PAC despite increasing pressure.
“CBS clearly made errors of professional journalistic judgment in the execution of this story. These are the types of mistakes that necessarily happen when business reporting is done with prejudice and based on a preconceived political narrative,” DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall told Fox News.
RON DESANTIS BLASTS CBS ’60 MINUTES ‘FOR PUBLIX-COVID CLIP’ DECENTLY EDITED ‘: A’ POLITICAL NARRATIVE ‘
“Now that the gaps in this report have been clearly exposed, CBS must feel compelled to publicly acknowledge its mistakes. CBS must provide a transparent explanation of how such a story went through the various levels of the editorial process with no one in the CBS hierarchy realizing that piece was badly damaged, “added McCall.
Conservatives condemned the “60 Minutes” segment, which lit up social media on Sunday night. Despite growing criticism, CBS has ruled out much of the reaction so far.
CBS News dismissed the initial allegations that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited a heated discussion between one of its correspondents and DeSantis about an alleged “pay to play” scheme promoted by the reporter.
“As we always do for clarity, ’60 Minutes’ used the part of the governor’s more than two-minute response that directly addressed the correspondent’s question,” a CBS News spokesman told Fox News.
As the reaction continued on Monday, Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner, a Democrat, accused CBS’s “60 Minutes” program of “intentionally false” reporting.
CRITICS BLAST ’60 MINUTES ‘FOR’ FALSE NARRATIVE ‘THAT DESANTIS ENGAGED PUBLIX IN THE PAY FOR GAME VACCINE SCHEME
“The report was not based only on bad information – it was intentionally false,” Kerner said in a forceful statement on Monday. “I know this because I volunteered to provide information about Palm Beach County’s vaccination efforts and the ’60 Minutes’ refused. They know that the governor came to Palm Beach County and met with me and the county administrator and we asked to expand the state’s partnership with Publix to Palm Beach County … ’60 Minutes’ should be ashamed. “
But CBS News downplayed Kerner’s statement, pointing Fox News to a tweet sent by Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay who contested Kerner’s statement.
“McKinlay works for Kerner,” said a CBS News spokesman.
CBS News declined to provide further comments.
DePauw feels it is “doubtful” that CBS really does any kind of honest public introspection about the segment.
DEMOCRAT OF FLORIDA: THE DESANTIS ’60 MINUTES REPORT ‘WAS’ ABSOLUTE MALARCHY ‘
“Established media outlets are comfortable allowing their credibility to suffer while pressing agendas. The sad thing is that millions of people have seen the original and flawed report and will never know the proper context,” said McCall. “This situation with CBS and DeSantis fully demonstrates why public confidence in the media is growing, and how the official media is failing to provide the nation’s measured information needs.”
On Tuesday morning, the reaction to the story was national news and Governor DeSantis joined “Fox & Friends” to offer his insights on the story he called the “successful work” of the liberal media.
“Everything [CBS] what I was looking to do was a successful job to try to defame me just because I’m in the other party that they do. That is the only reason, “said DeSantis.” This is the corporate party media and I think at the moment these people like this reporter are basically ambulance hunters with a microphone. They are not to be trusted. They lie. We know that they are lying, they know that we know that they are lying and yet they lie and lie and they lie. “
DeSantis had already condemned “60 Minutes” when talking to Tucker Carlson of Fox News on Monday night.
Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson feels that CBS simply wanted to taint DeSantis and does not expect the network to correct the story. In fact, he is concerned that “disinformation” is with the Republican governor.
“The mainstream liberal media will tell us who they fear, and fear Ron DeSantis for the 2024 presidential election. Therefore, the attempt to create a negative DeSantis narrative is starting early and will be made frequently. The narrative is that DeSantis was incompetent and played a partisan policy in managing COVID and delivering the vaccine. That narrative is the opposite of reality, as even some Democratic politicians coming to DeSantis ‘defense against the ’60 Minutes’ story show, “Jacobson told Fox News. .
“In this post-truth media environment, there is still a good chance that the narrative will settle and millions of people who watched ’60 Minutes’ will never know the truth, especially after the ’60 Minutes’ misinformation is magnified on social media . it is also another mark against journalism as a profession “, continued Jacobson.
“When arguably the country’s leading news magazine program is involved in spreading disinformation, is it any wonder that Republicans and conservatives see the mainstream media as their political enemy?”
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Publix called the notion that it received special access “absolutely false and offensive”.
“The irresponsible suggestion that there was a connection between campaign contributions made to Governor DeSantis and our willingness to partner with other pharmacies to support the state’s vaccine distribution efforts is absolutely false and offensive. We are proud of our pharmacy associates for administering more than 1.5 million doses of vaccine to date and to join other retailers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to do our part to help our communities emerge from the pandemic, “he said. a Publix spokesman to Fox News.