Media Mistakes, Slipping Standards and the 60 Minutes Problem (PODCAST)


This podcast was first published on April 15, 2021, but disappeared from view some months later. Here it is, revived now by popular demand!

A hard look at slipping journalism standards, the 60 Minutes DeSantis story, and the devastating fallout when it comes to fairness and accuracy.


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10 thoughts on “Media Mistakes, Slipping Standards and the 60 Minutes Problem (PODCAST)”

  1. You are the best of the very few true “journalists” remaining in the US and many like me and my family could not be more appreciative for you, Full Measure or this newsletter. I downloaded “Slanted” to my Kindle last night and can barely put it down. Thank you for all your efforts Sharyl!

  2. This false reporting in not new to 60 Minutes, they have been doing this for years. The details presented below is from my own experience, some of the details may not be totally accurate but it is what I remember and regardless, it is very close to what happened. In the 80’s I worked for a Chemical Company that purchased an existing business in the Niagara Falls area. Someone built homes over an old landfill and fumes were leaching up from the ground causing health issues to the residents. Our company had an excellent track record for being environmentally sound and the 60 minutes crew reached out to our Plant Manager at this facility and wanted to get his thoughts on why he thought this landfill was contaminated and to provide any insight. [The facility was located miles from this residential area.] The Plant Manger had no knowledge that our Niagara Falls company sent anything to this landfill but wanted to be helpful if someone was trying to get to truth. However, after 60 Minutes got done editing his almost 1-hour interview, they aired on TV their own narrative in which the interviewer asked our Plant Manager if he had any knowledge of our waste going to this landfill and the mixed and sliced taped answer came out as “Yes, this facility sent waste to this landfill using contracted waste haulers.” A total falsehood. Our company made every employee watch the full unedited interview and it quickly became apparent that our Plant Manager had no knowledge of any such waste going to this landfill in the past or present. He did mention that some companies may have sent waste to this landfill unintentionally as they may have been unaware that the contracted waste haulers took it to this specific landfill. He told the 60 minutes interviewer that new laws are in place which now makes companies responsible for any waste from cradle to grave. None of this mannered to 60 minutes as they wanted the American public to think Chemical companies were irresponsible and evil. To this day, I have no respect for the 60 minutes program based on what they did to our Plant Manager and I can assure you the hack job they did on Governor DeSantis is more of a norm rather than an exception. The next time you watch 60 minutes or any mainstream news story, it is always good to filter it for the whole truth and not just their one-sided narrative.

    1. 60 minutes has been one of the early industry leaders in pumping out toxic waste. It probably started out as a way to get ratings, and then it snowballed into a corrupt, leftist narrative-producing propaganda outlet. I’ve had a healthy disrespect for them for over 40 years, starting when I saw how inaccurate & slanted their reporting was when it came to law enforcement. The ‘free press’ has waaaay too many protections.

  3. You are too kind when you refer to journalist falsehoods as “mistakes”. I understand the reluctance to brand the untrue statements as lies. But- When a statement is found to have been untrue, it should be labeled as such. The statement was FALSE or NOT TRUE if unintentional it can be called a mistake. But the speaker must explain why the mistake was made. Unless they can explain it, it remains a lie. It is up to the journalist to tell us that the statement was a mistake instead of a lie.

  4. I myself have firsthand experience with media manipulation.
    A great part of my military service was spent in the intelligence world and one of my duties was to route classified messages. At the beginning of my tour, I was routing a classified message when something made me stop. Reaching into my desk drawer, I pulled out the day’s copy of the Washington Post and found an article I’d read which discussed the subject of the document.

    What I read in the message contradicted most of what was written in the article, either in total or in part. And a good deal of what was in the message was not in the article. Looking at how much they differed was quite an epiphany.
    At the end of my tour, I left the service with a skepticism about the media that I’ve had for last forty years.

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