Everyone should be joining Michael Rosenblum’s venomous attack of 60 Minutes’ latest self-congratulatory funfair.

Media budget cuts are effecting the coverage of foreign news. But then in walks CBS and blows a huge sum on producing a flaccid piece about Afghanistan. This comes out at the same time as the whistleblowing website, Wikileaks is begging for financial support so that they can continue exposing the truth around the world.

The big new corporations need to get their priorities straight and should be reminded of the huge responsibility they have on their shoulders as they inform huge audiences about the realities of the world we live in.

No of us should accept this kind of propagandistic, congratulatory drivel. We should all be up in arms about it.

60 Minutes is a Pile of Crap by Michael Rosenblum on February 1, 2010 – 6:33 am

CBS News ‘correspondent’ Lara Logan posing as a reporter…

A few days ago we ran a clip from Newswipe, a BBC parody of ‘news programs’.

It was funny.

But last night 60 Minutes ran a segment on the war in Afghanistan that was more parody than Newswipe.

Alas, it was far from funny.

The segment, the first on the show, was entitled The Quiet Professionals, and it was a profile of the highly trained green beret units in Afghanistan by ‘correspondent’ Lara Logan.

In the end, it didn’t say a whole lot about the Green Berets or Afghanistan but it said reams about the death of journalism on 60 Minutes.

Apparently, the 60 Minutes crew spent 2 months in Afghanistan filming this 7 minute report. From what they have aired, most of that time was spent getting Ms. Logan made up. There are long, languid shots of her in cover-girl pose – extreme close up – as she awaits answers to hard hitting questions like ‘that must be very hard’.

Tough stuff.

We are informed that many of the Green Berets are undercover, so CBS News ‘disguised’ them with Rayban sun glasses.

Great disguise!!

Most of the piece was just a pure softball love fest about how great a job the awesome Green Berets were doing, even if none of it was working. Still, they have beards and wear sun glasses and walk are all in great shape – let’s see them lift some weights! Yes! Sexy stuff and sexy Ms. Logan.

Then, at the end of the story, seemingly by accident – some real action (as opposed to the training exercises we have been watching). A ‘mysterious’ van approaches our hero Green Beret – the guy with the sexy beard and raybans – and our hero opens up on them! From a distance (you never know in Afghanistan). Two ‘warning shots’.

The van, it turns out, is filled with Afghan civilians. What a surprise.

But wait!! Our cool hero Green Beret in the raybans shot!!! two of the civilians in the back of the van!

Two kids!

And they are bleeding all over the van.

One is shot in the leg. The other has been shot in the chest.

Jesus Christ allmighty. You moron!

You absolute idiot!!

A chopper comes in to medivac the two wounded kids to medical care.

Now this is really a story. One that Ms. Logan and her crew have come upon entirely by accident, but what a story.

Do you wanna know why the Taliban are so popular in Afghanistan? It’s because we send thousands of idiots like this guy to parade all over their country killing their children at random and then going ‘oops!’

Does Ms. Logan pick up on this?

Not at all. The story line remains the same. Our hero sexy Green Beret is still our hero! Bad things happen sometimes but he’s still doing his dangerous job. (Dangerous to the locals!!)

More languid shots of Ms. Logan hair blowing in the wind. Make up looking good.

I was personally so astonished at this piece that I went to the 60 Minutes website and posted the very first comment. I said there what I said above.

Remarkably, 10 minutes after I posted my comment, I returned to the 60 Minutes site to see that it had been removed.

Astonishing.

I then tweeted the whole experience and an unnamed producer from 60 Minutes responded that Lara Logan indeed was a mindless piece of fluff. That he used to write every word that came out of her mouth, and that she had gotten hired, much to everyone’s ’shock’ at CBS News following a ‘dinner’ (his quotes) with Dan Rather.

You know, the media takes a lot of the responsibility for the debacle in Iraq because they simply refused to report.

60 Minutes is doing the same thing in Afghanistan now.

And it’s not like the truth is not out there.

It is.

Raul Gallegos, a Videojournalist for the Associate Press has been in Afghanistan for years, reporting the real story.

He is a far better journalist than Ms. Logan will ever be, he costs a whole lot less than the 60 Minutes crew does, and for two months, he gets a whole lot better product.

Here’s a small example of his work:

Compare this to the pure crap that 60 Minutes puts on the air – not to mention the propaganda feel of their ‘reporting’ and you will see why American journalism is in such serious trouble.

Lara, you looked great!