CHR - 60 Minutes: The Kamala Harris Edit

TOP LINE: Releasing “full, unedited transcript”

Resisting calls for the release of the full, unedited transcript suggests the reputational harm to 60 Minutes and CBS News may go beyond the Kamala Harris clips under scrutiny.

Releasing the unedited interview video and transcript would meet the highest standard of transparency.

This week, the Trump campaign called on CBS News and 60 Minutes to release the “full, unedited transcript” of its recent interview with Presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Trump campaign’s ask came after social media sleuths compared and contrasted two clips from CBS News X accounts.   As of this writing, you can review both clips on the platform.

The first clip was posted, on the morning of October 6th, to the official X account of Face The Nation, the CBS network’s Sunday current affairs program.

60 Minutes Correspondent Bill Whitaker says, “it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening.”

Harris responds, “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”

The following day, the second Harris clip was posted to the 60 Minutes X account. Harris’ response to the same Whitaker question was different.

“We’re not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” Harris responded.

DEEP DIVE: Precedent for releasing 60 Minutes transcript

Releasing the full, unedited 60 Minutes interview transcript with the Vice President would resolve these discrepancies and address questions about journalistic integrity. 

The AP’s David Bauder reports that according to CBS, “(Harris’) full answer to the question was the two sentences put together — the first sentence used on “Face the Nation” and the second sentence on “60 Minutes.

CBS said the need to make the “60 Minutes” interview segment concise prompted the editing.“

In television production, this is called an “internal edit.” It is permissible but we need to know much more about Harris’ responses and the context before concluding CBS News did not commit a journalistic foul.

For example, an internal edit that turns a 2 minute, meandering response from a Presidential candidate into to a crisp, clear, and concise answer, amounts to journalistic distortion.

At the very least, it is a violation of public trust, and depending on the circumstances, a violation of journalistic standards. This is magnified when the interview subject is seeking the nation’s highest office.

In plain terms, a TV news editing team crosses a line when it becomes the candidate’s clean-up crew.

I write about the TV editorial process with a sense of humility. Given the quick turnaround time between the interviews and Monday’s 60 Minutes special, the show was a “crash.” It’s not an excuse but it may explain why the promotional video Sunday did not mirror the final edit. This was a significant error. Consistency in broadcast editorial matters.

Releasing the transcript would resolve these questions and there is ample precedent. As a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News from 2019-2024, I interviewed then President Trump at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.  I advocated for and CBS News published the full, unedited transcript of the July 2020 interview on its website.

The CBS News Trump interview was not a special case. The full, unedited transcript for then Attorney General Bill Barr’s 2019 interview with CBS chief legal affairs correspondent Jan Crawford was also shared by the network online.

And Friday, we found on line that 60 Minutes released the full, unedited transcript of its February 2024 interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Why a different standard for the Harris interview transcript?

Don’t be confused by word games. 

When a news organization says it published a transcript, the key question is whether it is the full, unedited interview or a transcript of the story that was broadcast.  They are very different things.   As of this writing, on its website, the CBS Harris story, bearing correspondent Bill Whitaker byline, is a transcript of the 60 Minutes report.

MY TRAINING

When you conduct an on the record interview with a major newsmaker, my training is that a reporter has a special responsibility to ask a broad range of questions and to share the transcript. Your team hopes the interview generates headlines other media outlets can run with that go beyond the final, edited report that appears on your network. 

I was also trained that releasing the transcript is an opportunity for the correspondent, producers, editors, crews and the network to stand behind the integrity of the final report. You can think of it as a “show your work” exercise.  It’s about transparency and building trust with your audience.

Insight into TV production underscores this point. Before a high profile story is broadcast, a final “screening” is standard practice with the correspondent and production team. This review is the last chance to make changes, ask editorial questions, and double check your work and edits.  

My practice is to go line by line through a final script to fact check the narration, source the interview clips, video, photos and documents.  I’m not suggesting my work is perfect, but the goal is the highest degree of accuracy. While TV is a team sport, every correspondent understands they are responsible for the final report because it’s their face, name and voice.

REPORTING GUARD RAILS

The guard rails are clear: internal edits in the subject’s response are acceptable for clarity and to accommodate time constraints. The latter is less relevant with the advent of streaming and digital platforms. What’s not okay are internal edits that transform the interview’s tone, content and the quality of the subject’s responses. 

The journalistic bar is high with senior government officials, including a sitting Vice President and presidential candidate. After President Biden’s debate performance, ProPublica published the full video of its Fall 2023 interview.

The investigative journalism organization wrote, “Following Biden’s poor debate performance against Donald Trump, we’re releasing the full and unedited 21-minute interview we conducted with President Joe Biden nine days before his interview with Special Counsel Robert K. Hur.”

The timing matters as Special Counsel Robert Hur would soon conduct his own interviews with President Biden into the “unauthorized removal, retention and disclosure of classified documents.”  Hur concluded, “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur went further. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

In an August interview with the Tucker Carlson Network, I urged multiple media outlets to follow ProPublica’s lead and release the Biden transcripts, and raw video footage (the latter is more unusual for TV networks.)

TRANSPARENCY AND BUILDING TRUST

From an investigative standpoint, it’s about gathering evidence, and connecting the data points.  Did the interviews before the Presidential debate reflect signs of cognitive decline? Were they subtle or obvious? And if they were obvious, why were they left on the cutting room floor?

It’s also about accountability.  While assigned to the Hunter Biden investigation at CBS News, I was also the reporter who obtained audio tapes of former President Trump, apparently bragging about classified Iran documents.  CNN was first to report on the tapes.

CBS executives will make the call about an investigation into its most highly prized news asset, 60 Minutes, and whether those findings remain private.  Given the interview’s timing, so close to the Presidential election, calls for an immediate, fact driven explanation along with the release of the full, unedited transcript are justified. Releasing the unedited video would meet the highest standard of transparency.

A spokesman for CBS News did not respond to our written questions, texts and voicemail seeking a response.

I’ll have more to say on this subject, and coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop soon.

Thanks for sharing our website and subscribing to CatherineHerridgeReports

Inside the SCIF

In national security and intelligence circles, a SCIF or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility is used for classified records and discussions.

Our SCIF is an open forum for comments, questions, and suggestions for future projects.

No security clearance needed! The floor is yours.

This week, we had several questions about FEMA, including Lisa D, who wrote:

FEMA is a subject CatherineHerridgeReports hopes to take on after the election.

What strikes us is that Homeland Security is the hub for so many controversies including the border, FEMA funding, allegations of improper surveillance by TSA Air Marshals as well as the Secret Service securities failures including Butler PA.

Yet, the Department was set up after 9/11 to be a solution.

Submit your questions to [email protected]