Justin Volker

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@mickshaffer He was fantastic Friday night also. Way better than the John Strong / Stu Holden homerism duo.

[Ben Mullin @BenMullin]

Scott Pelley just issued a statement on Bari's remarks this morning:

[Dylan Byers @DylanByers]

New statement from Scott Pelley:

There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.

The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS.

“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.

The waste is heartbreaking.

Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.

For my part, 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.

At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.

I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.

Scott Pelley

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

Within one 24 hour period, Trump:

- got out of a $100 million IRS fine
- secured "immunity" from all future tax investigations for his family and friends
- created a $1.8 billion slush fund for lawbreaking supporters
- was reported for likely insider trading worth nearly $1 billion

All of the obvious things to say about this are true. It's bad. Nobody even tries to defend it. The closest thing to a defense you get is something about how "but Democrats suck" and "woke was also bad," which is not a defense, but rather a kind of moral blank check made out to the administration to give them the right to do anything.

But what I'm most curious about is whether this sort of lurid corruption creates a countermovement that successfully returns government to rule of law or whether it's establishing a norm of executive imperialism that every future administration will use to achieve its ends, which can always be justified by the moral blank check of "the other side is worse, so let us do whatever we want."

[Sarah Longwell @SarahLongwell25]

Today is a good reminder of how Elon Musk absolutely destroyed Twitter’s utility as an information tool.

[Jeff Storobinsky @JeffStorobinsky]

.@FacesByStella (Stella Carlson) A witness to the shooting of Alex Pretti tells her story to @andersoncooper

Citizen Journalism at its best

I Never ask this but PLEASE repost this

1.27.26 840 pm ET (19 minutes)

[Peter Baker @peterbakernyt]

Her father faced bribery charges. She donated $2.5 million to a pro-Trump Super PAC. Trump's Justice Department gave her father a lenient deal, overruling prosecutors. She gave another $1 million. Now Trump has pardoned her dad. @kenvogel @susannecraig https://t.co/UAwKC7NAbH

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@M_Gustafson27 @RockMNation Super.

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@PowerMizzoucom Doesn’t make it equitable. Timing/context matters.

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@StuHeck Did he cause the injury? Couldn’t tell at the bar I’m at.

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@MattJHarris85 They were never going to do that because it was inexplicable. Moved right past it on the broadcast.

[Tommy Vietor @TVietor08]

NBC reports that the FBI caught Tom Homan accepting bribes in exchange for steering government contracts but Trump shut the investigation down

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@DataMizzou Video?

[Shea Serrano @SheaSerrano]

a bunch of people working really hard to achieve something and then this doofus immediately breaking it is an incredible metaphor for this whole jackass administration

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@ByPatForde At least he took it out on the clipboard and not a Mizzou player this time.

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@PowerMizzoucom Let me try again:

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@PowerMizzoucom

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@mickshaffer

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@PowerMizzoucom They need to replace the official’s targeting mime from the fist to the head to 🤷

[Justin Volker @jrv_423]

@StuHeck Merry Christmas, Stu!