I worked at CBS News for almost 6 years. It was a place that frequently drove me crazy bc of how resistant it was to change. How difficult it was to get things done bc you had to fight so many people and their “Cronkite and Murrow would roll over in their graves if they saw” mentality.
For those who think Scott Pelley was part of the problem, you are wrong. Yes he could be rigid and a stickler for certain traditions. But I will tell you now the Gen Z people I worked w all loved him. Like me, they forgave a lot of his boomer ways bc we were in awe of investigations he did using hidden cameras exposing snake oil salesmen hurting Americans; showing us how Assad was using chemical weapons on his own people; the pain of rural Americans waiting for half a day to get affordable healthcare in a parking lot of a mobile clinic; his searing interviews w survivors of mass shootings.
Yeah he was old fashioned in some ways. I used to tease him bc he always had trouble pronouncing Beyoncé’s name.
But he was willing to be pushed. He was open to new ideas. The fact that someone like me and someone like him got along so well is proof of that. The guy made me a better thinker and a better journalist.
Scott Pelley issues new statement after being fired by CBS for opposing their pro-MAGA bias:
“New management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them.
Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done.
Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.”
NEW: the Ford government confirms the Ontario legislature will begin a 102-day summer break today, not returning until Oct. 27.
Government house leader Steve Clark explains the province doesn’t want to interfere with the municipal elections, so they’ll return the day after.
#BREAKING - MPP’s are leaving on what will be an almost 5 month break. The Ford government says the legislature won’t return until October 28th, a 148 day summer break. MPP’s though will continue to work in their constituencies and in committees.
We Are Living in the Dumbest Timeline
Donald Trump just posted a photo of a wind turbine next to birds and captioned it “Killing birds by the millions!”
He posted this without irony.
For every single bird killed by a wind turbine, nuclear and fossil fuel plants kill 2,118 birds. Coal alone kills roughly 7.9 million birds a year in the United States. Wind turbines? Between 140,000 and 328,000. That is not a defence of wind turbines.
We are living in genuinely, historically stupid times. Only rivalled, frankly, by the medieval peasants who blamed the Black Death on cats and promptly killed all the cats, which meant the rats multiplied, which meant more plague.
At least the peasants had the excuse of having no access to information whatsoever.
Trump has the internet. He chose this.
I truly wish @PBS would hire the team that @60Minutes has fired, including those-soon-to-leave Scott Pelley etc. and create their own version of this iconic program. Ratings would be huge.
Good will would be even larger.
This morning, Pete Hoekstra, @USAmbCanada, used his official account to push the 51st state idea.
He's downplayed that in the past, now he's pushing it.
If this is what he believes, perhaps it's time for the Carney government to ask him to leave.
https://t.co/GcykBL08Ut
A High School required reading list from 1978.
Yes, students under 18 years old read:
-Homer's The Odyssey & The Iliad
-Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote
-Herman Melville's Moby Dick
-Virgil's Aeneid
-Tolstoy's War and Peace
-Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
How many books on this list have you read?