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The battle over<\/span> \u201c60 Minutes\u201d can teach us a lot about how someone like CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss can wreak havoc on our media ecosystem. What has gotten a lot less attention, however, is the way the fight shows us how ill-equipped our media institutions already were when it comes to covering the Trump administration and MAGA-era politics.<\/p>\n The strife at the famous magazine television news program reached a fever pitch last week, when, during a staff meeting, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley unloaded on Nick Bilton, Weiss\u2019s pick to run the show. Pelley was fired and took to the media to defend himself.<\/p>\n In a long interview with the New York Times<\/a> over the weekend, Pelley talked about how Weiss had injected herself into the show\u2019s editorial process.<\/p>\n The most revealing part of the discussion centered on Pelley\u2019s own \u201c60 Minutes\u201d coverage of President Donald Trump\u2019s surge of immigration enforcement officers into Minneapolis, the uprising against the invasion, and the subsequent crackdown that led to the killings<\/a> of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents<\/a>.<\/p>\n Weiss\u2019s role in the story was clearly toxic, but Pelley\u2019s description of his own editorial process before Weiss got involved should also raise eyebrows.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations, and so I instructed my producers to find images in which we see the protesters acting aggressively,\u201d Pelley said. \u201cI thought we\u2019d done a really good job with this.\u201d<\/p>\n Pelley said they found evidence of protesters chest-bumping officers and hitting them with snowballs. The Minnesotans screamed at federal agents, Pelley said, and Pretti himself could be seen in one picture kicking out a police car taillight.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a striking passage because it shows a revered journalist searching for a balanced narrative where there simply wasn\u2019t one. If, after scouring hours and hours video to find evidence of \u201caggressive\u201d protesters, all you can find is a chest bump and a thrown snowball, perhaps that\u2019s a sign that your narrative that both sides were aggressive isn\u2019t all that accurate.<\/p>\n The truth is that the Minneapolis protesters were remarkably restrained<\/a> in the face of egregious state violence and brutality. Yes, they were angry, loud, persistent, and rude. Demonstrators yelled insults at officers, blew whistles, and recorded<\/a> with their cellphones<\/a>. Yet that is all First Amendment-protected activity, no matter how many times Stephen Miller or Kristi Noem<\/a> try to call it \u201cterrorism<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason why the criminal charges against protesters have rarely held up in court<\/a>: There was never any merit<\/a> to them. Over and over, when it came time to present actual evidence, the government backed down, was reprimanded by a judge<\/a>, or was rejected by a grand jury.<\/p>\n Likewise, Pretti\u2019s confrontation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement days before he was killed has nothing to do with whether immigration officers were justified in killing him. Videos of the killing show that Pretti did nothing to justify being confronted, beaten, and shot 10 times<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pelley\u2019s remarks, by themselves, offer a lesson in the pitfalls of striving for \u201cbalance\u201d under an administration that lies by default<\/a>, lies when it doesn\u2019t need to, and lies as a demonstration of its power.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Weiss, her billionaire Paramount bosses<\/a> David and Larry Ellison, and the other tech billionaires who fund her publication the Free Press are all of the belief that the legacy media is overwhelmingly left of center.<\/p>\n They\u2019re correct in a very broad sense. Generally, journalists who work for legacy outlets have personal politics that skew liberal, but it\u2019s more complicated than that. Legacy media journalists also tend to be institutionalists and deferential to authority. That can make them defensive of power and often skeptical of those who challenge it.<\/p>\n Even the most revered journalistic institutions aren\u2019t equipped to sort through the firehose of lies and propaganda pouring out of Trump\u2019s far-right movement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n As Pelley\u2019s Minneapolis story shows, these journalists also want to be seen as fair, which can drive them to seek balance even when there is no credible \u201cother side.\u201d Contrary to Weiss and the MAGA world\u2019s claims that legacy media is hopelessly blinkered, the more urgent problem right now is that even the most revered journalistic institutions aren\u2019t equipped to sort through the firehose of lies and propaganda pouring out of Trump\u2019s far-right movement.<\/p>\n Weiss\u2019s role at both the Free Press and now at CBS News has been to make that task even more even more difficult. Her editorial feedback for Pelley, for instance, only served to muddy the waters.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout four hours after our deadline,\u201d Pelley told the New York Times, \u201cBari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include \u2014 can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I\u2019m paraphrasing. I don\u2019t have the quote, but that\u2019s what was communicated to me. And the other thing: Renee Good\u2019s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.\u201d<\/p>\n Weiss\u2019s editorial advice to Pelley wasn\u2019t about clearer or fairer or more contextual journalism. She was asking for propaganda.<\/p>\n Weiss\u2019s editorial advice to Pelley wasn\u2019t about clearer or fairer journalism. She was asking for propaganda.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n If Jonathan Ross<\/a>, the ICE officer who shot Good, reasonably feared for his life, he was legally justified in killing Good. And if Good was driving toward him, that bolsters his claim to have reasonably feared for his life.<\/p>\n The problem is that there\u2019s no evidence that she was. In fact, CBS News did its own analysis of the video footage<\/a>, which clearly demonstrated that Good\u2019s wheels were pointed away from Ross \u2014 as did several other outlets. As television producer Tim Carvell pointed out<\/a>, however, CBS\u2019s analysis never aired on the network; it was relegated to YouTube.<\/p>\n Weiss\u2019s alleged directive also glosses over how Ross and his fellow agents also created the very volatility they claimed justified his use of lethal force. And it ignores how the agents violated multiple Department of Homeland Security policies during the encounter \u2014 for example, by putting themselves in front of Good\u2019s car, and by rushing toward her door.<\/p>\n At the time of Good\u2019s death, the administration and its supporters had also been pushing<\/a> a much more destructive and conspiratorial narrative<\/a>: that a cabal of far-left donors had been training protesters and ICE watchers to weaponize their cars <\/a>against immigration officers. Not only was there zero evidence<\/a> for this, it provided cover for what the agents themselves were doing. Video and witness accounts repeatedly showed agents ramming and boxing<\/a> people in with their vehicles, then falsely claiming<\/a> they were the victims who had been rammed. Slandering Good just reinforced the narrative.<\/p>\n If Weiss had really wanted to provide relevant context for Good\u2019s death, there were plenty of places to look. Perhaps Good feared for her safety because immigration officers surging<\/a> into liberal cities were pulling people out of their cars<\/a> and beating them. Or maybe it was relevant that Border Patrol officers have a long history<\/a> of improperly placing themselves in front of moving vehicles, then using that as justification to fire at those vehicles.<\/p>\n Weiss didn\u2019t demand any of that. For her, balance and nuance meant telling Pelley to make his story more palatable to MAGA.<\/p>\n\n
Striving for \u201cBalance\u201d<\/h2>\n
Enter Weiss<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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