You know all this Scott Pelley comedy got me thinking.\u00a0 What if 60 Minutes became a real honest to goodness investigative reporting show?\u00a0 You know, like it\u2019s claimed to be.\u00a0 Watching the legacy media reporting on Pelley was hilarious because they all used exactly the same wording to describe just how venerable 60 Minutes is; \u201cthe gold standard of journalism,\u201d \u201cunbiased and non-partisan,\u201d \u201cacclaimed by both political parties.\u201d\u00a0 Of course, if anyone objective was within hearing of these claims, the eye-rolling was epic.<\/p>\n
But imagine it for a moment.\u00a0 What if 60 Minutes did an expose about Somalians in Minnesota running daycare scams to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars?\u00a0 Or suppose they did an undercover investigation to find out which NGOs provide money, equipment and legal aid to Antifa?\u00a0 Then they would really be doing something useful.\u00a0 Even I would watch things like that.\u00a0 Or could you imagine a detailed investigation into Gavin Newsom\u2019s spending on high-speed rail and other boondoggles.\u00a0 Or how about someone doing an audit on the \u201cmassaging\u201d of the data used for the global warming studies?<\/p>\n
Well, anyway, I don\u2019t actually expect this level of honesty from legacy media but even if all they do is take a more balanced approach to interviewing political figures it would be a revelation.\u00a0 Now the question remains whether a more even-handed approach to reporting would increase the market share for CBS.\u00a0 Well, in my opinion, yes!\u00a0 I used to watch 60 Minutes back in the ancient days before all of journalism became a leftist monolith.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say 1985 as a time when some vestigial fairness could still be found in the media.\u00a0 If Bari Weiss succeeds in convincing the Right that she is willing to give respect to both sides of the country I think she can increase the audience by more than just a few percentage points.\u00a0 And just as importantly if other networks see something like that it will make an impression.<\/p>\n
Okay, that\u2019s enough happy-happy talk.\u00a0 We haven\u2019t seen anything substantive yet.\u00a0 Maybe all of this is just a way for Sky Dance to eliminate a lot of high-priced employees from their payroll.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure Scott Pelley was making eight figures and since they fired him for cause they don\u2019t have to pay off his contract (as long as his lawyers don\u2019t win in court).\u00a0 But potentially this could be another case of the economics of angering fifty percent of the country leading to the collapse of another corporate dinosaur.\u00a0 Just as Hollywood can\u2019t both fight off new entertainment technology and also alienate more than half its audience, we may be seeing the breaking point for this crooked industry.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t it just poetic justice that it\u2019s happening under the Trump administration.\u00a0 Tonight, I saw a clip where a reporter asked Trump about Pelley and he said, \u201cI think Scott Pelley\u2019s got his own problems, he\u2019s terrible. Look, Scott Pelley\u2019s a stiff and he\u2019s afraid, and he\u2019s part of this, you know, gang of crooked, stupid people that don\u2019t care about our country.\u201d\u00a0 Well, I think that sums things up admirably.\u00a0 Hopefully from here it will get even funnier.<\/p>\n