Lesley Stahl (cc photo: British Columbia)
60 Minutes seems proud of the fervor spawned by its scurrilous and inaccurate attack on disabled people. (See Peter Hart’s “What Did 60 Minutes Get Wrong About Disability?,” FAIR Blog, 10/7/13.) A week after airing the report, the show’s Lesley Stahl commented on viewer mail:
In The Mail, comments on Steve Kroft’s story about waste and fraud in the Social Security disability system. Many viewers thought it was long overdue. “I have worked for a law firm that does disability work for 12 years. The abuse of the system that I have seen is terrible.”
But other viewers called the story unfair to the legitimately disabled.
“I have yet to see a more BIASED, Republican-pandering news report. You sure FAILED on this one.” “Disability benefits are hard to obtain. Two-thirds of the applications are rejected.”
We were surprised at how many people offered to turn in their disability-collecting neighbors and relatives. One viewer accused a woman down the street of secretly cleaning houses. Another viewer pointed the finger at a not-so-disabled stepson and one man complained about his malingering mother-in-law.
Journalists excited to hear that their report made their audience eager to inform on their neighbors and family members: It sounds like the viewer’s mailbag at the end of an East German TV news show.
Sixty years ago, CBS‘s Edward R. Murrow implored his colleagues to conquer fear and forge ahead with an expose of Sen. Joseph McCarthy (See It Now, 3/9/54). According to Murrow’s colleague, See It Now producer Joseph Wershba:
Edward R. Murrow
When we looked at the near-final cut of the McCarthy broadcast and the staff showed fear of putting it on the air, Murrow spoke a line that landed like a lash across our backs: “The terror is right here in this room.” And later: “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” When someone asked what he would say on the McCarthy broadcast, he replied, “If none of us ever read a book that was ‘dangerous,’ nor had a friend who was ‘different,’ or never joined an organization that advocated ‘change,’ we would all be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.”
What a drop from the top. Murrow emboldened his CBS colleagues to fight against McCarthy’s terror; now CBS News is terrorizing disabled people.
McCarthy’s actions were violating the constitution by criminalizing association, speech, and thought.
Kroft’s report goes after criminals who defraud the public in a plain scam.
Why doesn’t FAIR see the difference?
Blair Houghton- FAIR doesn’t see a difference because these are only unfounded accusations just like Tail Gunner Joe’s. SSI disability is hard to get, cases are reviewed regularly and the benefits are meagre.
Would you feel better if these people were left to starve?
@ sdbruns – there is always some folks (as in the previous poster) who see one person pulling a scam (and we all know one or two) and therefore in their mind everyone is guilty. It is the black/white double think that is embedded in the American public. Since it is easier to attack a group of people who will zero to no chance of defending themselves, it is far easier to see them (the disableed) as the villain than to actually look around and see who the true culprits are; folks like Boehner who want to take the money from the disabled and give it to their uber-rich friends, who will then hand them some of the ill gotten gain. When we let the weasels run the hen house, it should be no surprise that the “egg output” drops.
This is part of the general trend and, yes, strategy to get us fighting amongst ourselves to make it easier for the fascist fox to run off with our constitutional hen house and the haven for the pursuit of happiness it was designed to create.
Of course there are problems with the S.S. disability system. This is just something we get with human nature–except added to this we have the disinclination on the part of the people to honor and follow the Law when they know that the same Law is not followed by corporate interests (of which 60 Minutes is a part and an agent), the growing octopus of government bureaucracies, the police, and the courts including the highest court in the land!
However, the people are not the problem. The people will follow a good and honorable law that is interpreted fairly and on a playing field that is absolutely level. But our legal field is not even close to level. The problem is big out-of-control government that is drunk on its own power–a power which we give them with our own placid consent–and is willing to justify almost any abomination, adulteration, of the Law for its own petty purposes–whatever those might be.
Let 60 Minutes go after the real big, no, monstrous criminals and then it can be taken seriously.
And that it might be taken seriously by citizens who would “inform on their neighbors” only tells us that those citizens have had their patterns of thought effectively created by the barrage of misinformation and illogic that they have absorbed ever since the cradle. If you want to know what the superlative somatic drink is you only have to turn on your t.v. and you are looking at it.
In general the media takes advantage, instead of correcting, deficiencies in the public’s thinking, deficiencies that it has helped to create.
The purpose of the press going after petty criminals (assuming there are any in this instance) is:
(1) To further convince Americans to give up their hard-fought-for safety net. (2) To divide and conquer.
(3) To create the illusion of integrity (where there is none) by pretending to expose fraud. (4) To deflect attention from the real criminals who raid the Treasury, exploit people and nature, pollute the planet, and wage wars in the name of profit and control.
I believe Anatole France wrote about the righteousness of the rich who obey the law forbidding one to sleep under bridges. Same with Social Security Disability: it is damn easy to complain about the cheating poor while all the time ripping off the government for outrageous sums through off-shoring corporate accounts, setting up phony companies to reduce tax rates, manipulating interest rates, and various other means of defrauding us all. No time, of course, to talk about those things on corporate media.
I think it’s a fair comparrison. Joe McCarthy made things up and bullied people. He won a few first fights and then, he became FEAR himself. America has heard of welfare queens, and now, ( work on this story 60 minutes) we find that, we the taxpayers, are subsidizing the fast food industry and places like walmart. we the taxpayers end up paying for these employees food stamps and medical care.
Then we hear that to raise the minimum wage would force all these GIANT corporations to raise their prices. That’s not true, but we don’t live in a nation that knows what the common good means anymore.
60 Miinutes once had news that people could look to for hard evidence and in depth reporting. Times change and values change, so maybe 60 Minutes felt it should change too. Since it no longer does investigative reporting, maybe it should continue the devolving and migrate to twitter and reinvent itself as 60 Seconds. : )
Contrast 60 minutes “journalism” against Obama’s policy requiring members of the military-industrial-complex to report on fellow employees/soldiers that expose war crimes, crimes against humanity….It takes years of scrutiny before being awarded disability benefits. Since 2003, how many war criminals, banksters, fossil fuel and big-pharma industry executives are now serving prison sentences for crimes against Humanity and Mother Earth? The only attempts by MSM to “fix” these injustices appear to be biased reporting and silence?
There IS a problem with fraud by many who get get disability benefits. I know some “posers” myself. But there are also people who genuinely need and legitimately receive these benefits. You can’t use a broad brush to describe everyone. It would behoove the system to get investigate the cheats and eliminate their benefits.
Here we go again.The seminal line in this piece is “Republican pandering….”Look everybody that sees problems in a system of socialized disbursement of funds is not a (wait for it…that dirty word that Dems want you to believe is in fact a dirty word)Republican.Or a racist.Or a bigot.Or a religious fanatic.I could go on but you get the point.See libs today use trigger words to attack anyone who goes against them and their designs.They believe that what they believe…all must believe.They mean to force you to drink the water.Marginalize,deride,insult,and finally silence their critics.This is the way of Obama and his Chicago thug politics.Even favorites of theirs like Jon Stewart who last week derided Obama care- was viciously attacked.He had to be.He stepped out of line.He must be taught a lesson,so all who would step out of line shall learn.The left are the Joe Mccarthy’s of our time.So as always the question shall not be raised,discussed,studied,or fixed if need be.Because anyone who does so hate cripples right?Like all those dirty republicans(who hate woman)and those nazis in the tea party.Right?
How sad a commentary on what our nation has become. It is so disheartening that people so quickly jump at the chance to turn in their friends, neighbors and even family (and take great pleasure in it), rather than protecting the VAST majority of legitimate disability recipients.