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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 4445428" data-attributes="member: 54877">60 minutes is part of the CBS new department.  Always has been.  Heck, Andy Rooney was a younger version of Ernie Pyle, except he survived WWII.  For most of the 60 minutes run, as noted earlier, the staff is not exactly "spring chicken" material. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> CBS long had a particular tradition and reputation of doing the news by the rules--being objective reporters to a degree not achieved elsewhere. Whether this was deserved is another question (and probably not fit for this forum), but suffice it to say that they were so perceived, by much of the public and themselves. Ergo, it was not possible for them to convey an agenda any other way.  They not only had to fool the public into thinking they were being fair, they had to fool themselves.  Fooling yourself is hard, at least until you've had some practice. It was vitally important to them that they have the appearance of being objective. Contrast this to, say, John Stossel, who routinely does pieces with transparent agenda.  He doesn't care if you see the agenda.  Thus, he never uses any of these dishonest editing tricks.  To see the difference, imagine that 60 Minutes and Stossel decide to do a piece on the popularity of D&D 4E. 60 Minutes:  Interviews a carefully selected, highly non-representative slice of fans and non fans.  Depending on whether they want to laud it or slam 4E, they make sure that the appropriate fans are edited to look good and bad.  If they don't actually find what they are looking for, will use even more editing to convey the preferred agenda. Stossel:  Decides up front that he wants to laud or slam 4E.  Goes out and finds some representative fans for that purpose, with some mild dissent for leavening.  Tells you at the beginning of the piece that this is what he did.  Tells you at the end that he didn't really cover the other side, as that wasn't the purpose of the piece.  If he doesn't actually find what he was looking for, will either can the story (if it was boring) or run it anyway, with the, "we were surprised to find" twist. You can blame Stossel for his agenda story selection, if you want, but at least he is honest.  Hmm, now I want Stossel to do a story on D&D. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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