60 Minutes

When ‘60 Minutes’ Checks Its Journalistic Skepticism at the Door

By DAVID CARR

Last week, a study commissioned by the president concluded that the National Security Agency had reached too far into the private lives of Americans. The study, which came after a series of journalistic revelations exposing the agency’s surveillance practices, recommended numerous reforms that would curb the N.S.A.’s prerogatives. President Obama said he was “open to many” of the suggestions.

It was exactly the kind of news-making moment that “60 Minutes” — America’s leading purveyor of serious television news — has often been responsible for creating. For more than four decades, the program has exposed C.I.A. abuses, rogue military contractors and hundreds of corporate villains.

But where was “60 Minutes” on the N.S.A. story? The Sunday before the damning study, the program produced a segment that scanned as a friendly infomercial for the agency. Reported by John Miller, a CBS News reporter, the piece included extensive interviews with Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the N.S.A.

      

In a scene that served as something of a metaphor for the whole segment, the producers negotiated access to the Black Chamber, a supersecret area where the nation’s top code breakers work. The door is briefly opened, we see a deserted office hall that looks like any other and then the door is closed. We get a look in, but we learn nothing.

      

Coming as it does on the heels of the now-discredited Benghazi report — in which “60 Minutes” said it was fooled by an eyewitness who was apparently nothing of the kind — the N.S.A. segment raises the question of whether the program has not just temporarily lost its mojo, but its skepticism as well. It didn’t help that the day after the piece aired, a federal judge ruled that the agency’s program of collecting phone records was most likely unconstitutional.

      

In between its coverage of Benghazi and the N.S.A., “60 Minutes” drew criticism for letting Amazon promote a drone delivery program that is years from actually happening, if it happens at all. It was a fanciful look at the commercial future, though Charlie Rose, the reporter, also asked Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, some tough questions: whether providing cloud services to the C.I.A. was a conflict, and whether its “ruthless” pursuit of market share was fair.

      

Let’s stipulate that “60 Minutes” has been and continues to be a journalistic treasure, which just this year has done hard-hitting pieces on the damaging practices of credit report agencies, the high rate of suicide among returning veterans, and how tainted pain medication that caused fungal meningitis killed dozens and sickened hundreds. Mr. Rose also landed an interview with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, about chemical weapons. At a time when both the definition and execution of news has dimmed, “60 Minutes” stands out.

      

Historically, the news that “60 Minutes” was in the lobby or on the phone has struck fear in the hearts of both the stalwart and the venal. The show made its targets quake and audiences thrill as it did the hard, often amazing work of creating consequence and accountability.

      

But in the last few months, there have been significant lapses into credulousness, when reporters have been more “gee whiz” than “what gives?” The news that “60 Minutes” is calling could be viewed as less ominous and more of an opportunity. More than once this year, the show has traded skepticism for access.

      

When it comes to the access game, everyone, even “60 Minutes,” plays ball on occasion. When it seeks to lighten things up, as it did with Taylor Swift, or Maggie Smith of “Downton Abbey,” no one expects hidden cameras or brutal interrogations. Everyone, including the audience, knows the score.

But viewers expect the show to bring its A game, and deserve it, when it takes on a huge issue like the N.S.A., to serve as a stand-in for the American people and ask the uncomfortable questions.

      

Mr. Miller is a former high-ranking official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and a former spokesman of the F.B.I. whose worldview is built on going after bad guys and keeping the rest of us safe. In his report, Mr. Alexander was allowed to parse his responses, suggesting that the collection and retention of telephone metadata from Americans is not a big deal — it is — and that the agency is “not collecting everybody’s email, we’re not collecting everybody’s phone things.” The report delivered to the president last week said that the agency was doing a great deal of both and that it should stop.

      

After taking over “60 Minutes” from Don Hewitt less than 10 years ago, Jeffrey Fager has managed to maintain the journalistic momentum of the news division’s crown jewel. In 2011, he was named chairman of CBS News, and since then has earned high marks for helping restore hard news at the evening news program and developing a distinct identity for “CBS This Morning” by emphasizing topical coverage.

      

But people inside and outside the news division have questioned whether those dual roles are stretching him too thin. An internal CBS investigation into the Benghazi fiasco cited fundamental lapses in execution, including missed opportunities to check the story of Dylan Davies, a contractor who had told conflicting accounts about his whereabouts on the night of the attacks on the American diplomatic mission.

      

Of course, any news organization can be fooled — The New York Times famously fell short with its reports of supposed weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war — but it was hard to watch the N.S.A. segment and not wonder who was minding the store.

      

On what planet is it fine for someone like Mr. Miller, a former federal law enforcement official, to be the one to do a big segment on a major government security agency? Mr. Miller got the story because the N.S.A. said yes to his pitch — why would it not? — but other journalists at “60 Minutes” without his potential conflicts were interested as well. No matter how the deal was brokered, the optics were terrible and the N.S.A. got its hands on a megaphone with nary a critic in sight.

      

Mr. Fager would not speak on the record, perhaps in part because he was pummeled after initially defending the Benghazi broadcast; when it fell apart, he was forced to put Lara Logan, the reporter, and the producer on leave. But while declining to comment, he made it clear that he very much had his eye on the ball at “60 Minutes” and pushed back against any notion of institutional malaise.

      

Mr. Miller was more than happy to explain his N.S.A. segment, which he said he would not change if he had the chance. As a reporter, he has a blend of insider knowledge and careful inquiry that has been lauded by many, including me, especially during the school shootings in Newtown, Conn. He is nothing if not confident, dismissing his critics as ankle-biting, agenda-ridden bloggers who could not be compelled to get out of their pajamas and do actual reporting.

      

“I fully reject the criticism from you and others,” he told me. “The N.S.A. story has been a fairly one-way dialogue. There has been no conversation and when you do hear from the N.S.A., it is in a terse, highly vetted statement.”

      

“We went there, we asked every question we wanted to, listened to the answers, followed up as we wished, and our audience can decide what and who they believe. As we constructed it, the N.S.A. was a story about a debate, not a villain, and we added to that debate with important information. I fail to understand how a shrill argument for the sake of creating televised drama would have accomplished anything.”

      

Mr. Miller is a highly respected reporter, and stand-up enough to come on the phone and defend his work. (He is reportedly heading back into government to work for his former boss, William Bratton, in the New York City Police Department.) But I’m pretty sure that the credentials that make him valuable on a mass shooting are the same ones that create a conflict on the N.S.A. segment. And Ms. Logan, who raced past conflicting information to a predetermined conclusion and pulled the program into a ditch in the process, should get more than Christmas off for her lapses.

      

The DNA of “60 Minutes” is adversarial, investigative and most of all accurate. It would be a cheap and easy trick to roll Mike Wallace back from the grave for the sake of contrast, but of course the N.S.A. would not have let him near the place. Maybe that is the point. “60 Minutes” is a calling, not an assignment, and the program should not be the kind of outfit that leaves its skepticism at the door to get inside.