60 Minutes

60 Minutes is the name of several television newsmagazines, the first of which has been produced by CBS News since 1968. That show, created and made successful by producer Don Hewitt, has inspired similar shows on Australian television and New Zealand television. The shows begin and end with the image and sound of a ticking stopwatch, an image that in the 1970s became symbolic of investigative journalism on U.S. television.

Controversy

Some segments of the 60 Minutes program have drawn criticism. Conservatives question the show's journalistic integrity, particularly regarding political stories attacking conservative politicians.

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One reason given by people for refusing to be interviewed by 60 Minutes is that the producers insist on reserving the right to edit the interviews.

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"Unintended acceleration"

In 1986, Don Hewitt greenlit a story concerning the Audi 5000 automobile, a popular German luxury car. The story concerned a number of incidents where the car purportedly accelerated without warning while parked, injuring or killing people. 60 Minutes was unable to duplicate this behavior, and so hired an outside consultant to modify the transmission to behave in this manner, and aired a story about it.

Related Topics:
1986 - Greenlit - Audi 5000

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The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not reach the same level for another fifteen years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Transport Canada to have been attributable to operator error, where car owners had depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. CBS issued a partial retraction, without acknowledging the test results of involved government agencies{{ref|UKAR_Possessed}}.

Related Topics:
United States - National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - Transport Canada - Operator error

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A rival to 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC, would be found guilty of similar tactics years later regarding fuel tank integrity on General Motors pickup trucks.

Related Topics:
Dateline NBC - General Motors

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Brown & Williamson

In 1996, former Brown & Williamson (B&W) Vice President for Research & Development Jeffrey Wigand provided information to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman that B&W had systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarettes. Furthermore, it was alleged that B&W had introduced foreign agents (fiberglass, ammonia, etc.) with the intent of enhancing nicotine's effects. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt. Because of the hesitation from Hewitt, The Wall Street Journal instead broke Wigand's story. The 60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content, and was missing some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The exposé of the incident was published in an article in Vanity Fair by Marie Brenner, entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much{{ref|VanityFair_Brenner}}. The New York Times wrote that 60 Minutes and CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow." The incident was turned into a seven-times Oscar-nominated feature film, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, entitled The Insider.

Related Topics:
1996 - Brown & Williamson - Jeffrey Wigand - Lowell Bergman - Cigarette - Fiberglass - Ammonia - The Wall Street Journal - Exposé - ''Vanity Fair'' - Marie Brenner - ''The Man Who Knew Too Much'' - The New York Times - Edward R. Murrow - Oscar - Russell Crowe - Al Pacino - The Insider

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U.S. Customs Service

60 Minutes alleged in 1997 that agents of the U.S. Customs Service ignored drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border at San Diego{{ref|WSJ_Fund}}. The only evidence was a memorandum apparently written by Rudy Camacho, who was the head of the San Diego branch office. Based on this memo, CBS alleged that Camacho had allowed trucks belonging to a particular firm to cross the border unimpeded. Mike Horner, a former Customs Service employee, had passed the memos on to 60 Minutes, and even provided a copy with an official stamp. Camacho was not consulted about the article, and his career was devastated in the immediate term as his own department placed suspicion on him. In the end, it turned out that Horner had forged the documents as an act of revenge for his treatment within the Customs Service. Camacho successfully sued CBS for an unknown settlement, and Don Hewitt was forced to issue an on-air retraction{{ref|WaPo_Camacho}}.

Related Topics:
1997 - U.S. Customs Service - Drug trafficking - U.S. - Mexican - San Diego - Truck

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Killian memos

60 Minutes II received a set of documents which alleged that, while in the service of the Texas Air National Guard, President George W. Bush was declared unfit for duty, and suspended from service. Producer Mary Mapes passed the information on to CBS anchor Dan Rather, who aired the information on September 8, 2004. These documents were the source of a considerable controversy when bloggers raised doubts about their authenticity, which then spilled over into the mainstream media. CBS later admitted their "regrets" that they had "been misled" by the source of the documents, former Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett{{ref|CBS_Probe}}. Bill Burkett was a well-known nemesis of George W. Bush, and when CBS accepted without much reservation evidence from such a potentially unreliable source it seemed to indicate either incompetence on behalf of the CBS researchers or, as speculated by many Bush supporters, an active anti-Bush bias by Dan Rather and the producers of 60 Minutes II. The producer of the 60 story immediately afterwards — to the "scoop".

Related Topics:
A set of documents - Texas Air National Guard - President - George W. Bush - Mary Mapes - Dan Rather - September 8 - 2004 - Bloggers - Mainstream media - Scoop

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The fallout for 60 Minutes II from running this segment greatly hurt both its credibility and that of Dan Rather. Ratings for both 60 Minutes II and CBS Evening News anchored by Dan Rather plummeted amidst the public perception that CBS was being overly stubborn and defensive about their use of documents which were widely felt to be fraudulent. Then-retired 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II creator and executive producer Don Hewitt publicly stated that it was wrong for 60 Minutes II to air the segment and it would not have aired if he had been still in control of the newsmagazine program. Many conservative pundits point to this as a prime example of a liberal bias in the US media. When CBS announced November 23, 2004 that Dan Rather would leave his position as news anchor with the network effective March 9, 2005, it was widely believed that his retirement was at least partly a consequence of the Killian memo scandal. Some left-wing commentators have suggested this was likely an intentional setup of Sixty Minutes II and CBS by supporters of George W. Bush, in order to try and create large-scale skepticism among voters of any future accusations regarding Bush's National Guard service record.

Related Topics:
Liberal bias - November 23 - 2004 - March 9 - 2005

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Viacom cross-promotion

The show has in recent years been accused of promoting books, films, and interviews with celebrities who are published or promoted by sister businesses in the Viacom empire, without disclosing the journalistic conflict-of-interest to viewers{{ref|NRO_Viacom}}.

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Video game censorship

The March 6, 2005 segment was criticized by video game players for encouraging video game censorship. The segment was discussing about Devin Thompson and the Grand Theft Auto video game series, and showing footages of '. This segment was last rerun on June 19, 2005.

Related Topics:
March 6 - 2005 - Video game censorship - Grand Theft Auto - June 19

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