Did executives at CBS News sit on a clip from an exclusive interview with Barack Obama to protect his election chances in 2012? Sharyl Attkisson insisted on CNN and Fox that executives had been notified by 60 Minutes that they had a clip in which Obama rejected the use of the word “terrorism” the day after the attack on the consulate in Benghazi in an unaired portion of Steve Kroft’s exclusive interview. Instead of forwarding that to CBS Evening News and the reporter working on the Benghazi story — Attkisson herself — network news execs instead directed their organizations to use another part of the interview that bolstered Obama’s case, never revealing the existence of the sound bite until after the election. Attkisson tells both Michael Smerconish and Howard Kurtz that “something very unethical was done“:
I'd link but you libmonkies wouldn't click and dont believe the media would tilt truth to help Obama win the 2012 elections.On CNN, Smerconish questions why Kroft wouldn’t have spoken up about the clip. Attkisson emphasizes that, to her knowledge, 60 Minutes did send the whole package to CBS News HQ, including a transcript. The decision to bury the exchange took place at the higher level, and apparently without the knowledge of Kroft or his producers, who might have assumed that Attkisson got the whole package and decided not to use the clip for her own reasons.
Mushroom politics, yay!