 | EschewObfuscation (61)
12/02/2004 |  At my first job out of college, we were standing around the water cooler discussing the previous nights 60 Minutes story where Wallace had confronted some store owner, implying his company had engaged in dumping some material illegally into a local waterway. We were all convinced he was guilty. The owner of the firm listened and said I wouldn't let those guys in the door. That guy didn't break any law, didn't do anything Wallace accused him of. I was stunned as I had never heard anyone criticize 60 Minutes before. A few weeks later it came out that the guy was indeed innocent, Wallace issued a cryptic retraction on camera and I never watched the show with the same fawning approach again. It was 1977 and it was much more rampant then, they got away with a lot more shoddy, confrontational journalism than they can today. The discourse is more shrill, more confrontational, more angry, now, but if you thought 60 Minutes was a fair, objective bit of investigative journalism, think again. It's a good thing they are questioned today, Wallace's work particularly. He's a great TV personality but if groupthink is a danger for the Bush Administration today, 60 Minutes has been, at times, the clearest example of the net effect of it.
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