Daily Show And Colbert Report Blast 60 Minutes' “Meh Culpa” Over False Benghazi Story

Daily Show Meh Culpa

Comedy Central's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report criticized CBS' 60 Minutes for its apology and correction over its Benghazi report featuring discredited source Dylan Davies that media observers and journalism experts have called “pathetically inadequate,” “flimsy,” and “way short of what was needed.”

On November 8, 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan told viewers “we were wrong” to air the October 27 segment after Davies' credibility was destroyed following reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times that what he told 60 Minutes about his actions during the Benghazi attacks differed substantially from what he told his employer and the FBI. Logan promised that on November 10, 60 Minutes would “correct the record.” That apology and correction came at the end of the program, lasted a mere 90 seconds, and contradicted a previous account Logan gave about Davies' story.

Jon Stewart blasted the 60 Minutes apology in a segment he called “meh culpa,” saying Davies' account was “total bullsh*t. He made the whole thing up.” Stewart then criticized the program for not checking out Davies' story prior to airing the segment:

Stephen Colbert highlighted Fox News' obsession with tying the Benghazi hoax to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and its promotion of the false 60 Minutes story. Colbert also aired his own segment satirizing CBS' production of the Benghazi report.

Media reporters and journalism professors have also criticized 60 Minutes' apology. New York Times reporters Bill Carter and Brian Stelter noted that “the apology was deemed inadequate by a wide range of commentators.” Politico media reporter Dylan Byers wrote that the apology “offered little in the way of an explanation for the show's error.” Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz tweeted that the apology "[l]eaves many questions unanswered." Michael Getler, former Washington Post and current PBS ombudsman explained in an email to Media Matters that “the apology fell way short of what was needed.” He continued:

60 Minutes should have done a segment on what went wrong, not just a brief apology. 60 Minutes is the gold standard for credible investigative reporting on hot-button issues on network television, where precious little of that is done elsewhere. So it is important to journalism and to the public, not just to CBS, that it gets things right.

More criticism from media observers and journalism experts can be found here and here.