Steve Kroft on Romney and Obama as TV guests, and the amazing challenge of filling job openings at '60 Minutes'
Steve Kroft.
3:37 pm Jun. 5, 20122
Veteran "60 Minutes" journalist Steve Kroft, who, by his count, has interviewed Barack Obama a dozen times, said his show hasn't yet scheduled an interview with the Republican presidential candidate.
Speaking at the New York City chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists' annual awards dinner last night at the Waldorf Astoria, Kroft said, "We'll continue to interview the presidential candidates. I'm not sure Mitt Romney has agreed to sit down with '60 Minutes.'"
(Obama was at the same hotel but in a different area, raising money with Bill Clinton and Jon Bon Jovi.)
When I asked him what kind of guest he thought Romney would be, Kroft first muttered something about not wanting to touch the question with a "20-foot pole."
Stephen Shepard, the founding dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, asked Kroft what Obama is like "up close and personal."
Kroft said, "He's obviously engaged. He is, personally, a little distant."
"Distant, meaning not a lot of small talk?" asked Shepard.
"No, uh-uh," said Kroft. "He comes in and he's very cordial. He'll remember the last time we talked. He'll remember what, you know, maybe what clothes I was wearing. We have this thing where, we're both, uh, former smokers trying very hard. Um, every I see him now he gives me a couple of pieces of Nicorette gum, which is fine. If he's out, then I will give some to him. That's sort of the running joke."
Shepard asked if Kroft thought Obama still snuck a few cigarettes, privately. Kroft hesitated to answer, and the audience of cynical reporters laughed.
Finally, in response to the question, he recalled something he was once told by Reggie Love, Obama's body person. "We were down there once for an interview and he said, 'Boy you should have been around here yesterday. It was awfully smokey,'" Kroft said.
When the conversation got to the subject of journalism itself, Kroft said finding talent for the legendary CBS News show was problematic: "The challenge for the show ahead is going to be finding replacements," he said.
The room full of journalists listened intently to this part of his remarks.
Noting the death of "60 Minutes" mainstays like Andy Rooney and Mike Wallace, Kroft said, "We have to refill the talent pool and that's not that easy right now. We've been looking for someone to hire really as a full-time correspondent for a number of years and have had difficulty finding somebody that has all of the skills that we need in '60 Minutes' that wants to come work on the show, and kind of give up their life and to travel around the world."
That's because "so many people think they can make more money right now, you know, anchoring a talk show in the afternoon for one of the cable news networks and not having to leave," he said. "And so it's hard to find somebody who's got foreign experience, Washington experience, economic experience, who is pretty well-rounded, that is smart, that can do interviews."
Later in the evening, a woman in the audience asked Kroft to describe the job opening. She sounded amazed that show would have trouble finding qualified journalists.
"To find someone who's 40 years old and has got, you think, a strong future and is incredibly well-seasoned, there just aren't that many people around who are interested in doing this job. I know it sounds really crazy. I think there is more money right now in being an anchor man and I think that people feel that the cable news networks created all of these anchor positions, and it's just been hard to try and find someone who we think is good who wants to do it really badly who says, 'I'd love to be on "60 Minutes," that's all I want to do.'"
CORRECTION: The original version of this article stated incorrectly that The Deadline Club is affiliated with the New York Press Club.
all they have to do is wait up they all drop dead then the network can hire their children. like nbc does does so well.
Now, there ought to be a few more openings at CBS "60 Minutes," as both Steve Kroft and his producer(s) should either resign in disgrace, or be fired by the network for their hand in deliberately withholding from airing that absolutely key portion of Kroft's September 12th interview which he conducted with President Obama, until the absolute last second of the Presidential campaign. By that time the issue had been effectively muddled and neutralized as an issue, and there was insufficient time for the shocking revelation to have any effect. No other nework -- other than Fox -- made any issue of the revelation on their news coverage.
Therefore, it was easily as equal partisan a decision by "60 Minutes" as was the Dan Rather/Mary Mapes decision back in 2004, to present false documents to the American people about then-President George Bush. Instead of presenting false and insufficiently vetted information as the did back then, this time the network deliberately suppressed a key question and answer, one that revealed information regarding the President's state of mind, just ONE DAY after the attack, and only a few hours after his statement in the Rose Garden!
During that key portion of the interview, Steve Kroft pointedly asked the President the following question, and the President answered him accordingly:
KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word “terrorism” in connection with the Libya attack. Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?
OBAMA: Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans. And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.
Everyone knows that this issue -- whether or not it was terrorism, and whether or not it was a "coordinated" terror attack, became very serious points of contention during the second debate (moderated by Candy Crowley of CNN). During that debate, as everyone recalls, Crowley interrupted the exchange and falsely took the President's side, which she later admitted.
The issue was also glossed over during the third debate, one which was exclusively devoted to foreign policy.
That third debate, moderated by Bob Schieffer who, like Steve Kroft, is also employed by CBS, obviously would have also been a far more meaningful and truthful exchange, had the network done the right thing and released that portion of the interview, either before the 2d debate, or at least before the third exchange, over which their guy was going to be presiding!
But Steve Kroft, his producer(s) and possibly others at the network instead chose to hide that "question and answer" from the American people, thereby intentionally leaving a patently false impression essentially intact -- i.e., that right from the start, the President had publicly stated that it had been a terror attack.
Obviously he had not done so, based on his answer to Kroft just one day following the attack, which interview was held on September 12th. Kroft and others at CBS intentionally hid that exchange from the American people until just before the election, at which point it was impossible to "relitigate" the issue in the public's mind. And, none of the major networks, including CBS, ran that shocking revelation as a news story, except for Fox.
Query: Was there any contact between the Obama Campaign and anyone at CBS [including Steve Kroft and his producer(s)] prior to the first airing of the interview, such as asking the network to in any way suppress or downplay that brief exchange? How about prior to the network's subsequent release of other portions of the interview, though NOT the above portion?
Did Bob Schieffer know anything about that exchange before the third debate took place? If so, he should be gone in disgrace from the "Tiffany Network for his role in the cover-up as well.
This was as outrageous an instance of media bias as was the Rather/Mapes matter, only this time CBS got away with their treachery. Obviously, they were attempting to "tilt" the public debate for a Presidential election in both instances in favor of the Democrat candidate. In this case, they hid the truth from the public until it was simply too late to do anything about it. They were the ones who asked the question, but they suppressed the information because it could have been harmful to the President! The fact that they only released that key portion of the interview at the last second, makes it very clear that it was not an inadvertent editing job, or any kind of innocent oversight. They did it intentionally.
Shame on them all!