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Catherine Herridge

How X And Joe Rogan Broke The Back of 60 Minutes

Published

4 months ago

9 minute read

TOP LINE: 
Super consumers of news are flocking to X and other platforms that support independent journalism, diverse voices and embrace transparency.  The post election TV ratings abyss is driven both by technology and by the public’s loss of trust in Mainstream media.
DEEP DIVE:
To buy MSNBC or not to buy?
This week’s headline that Comcast will spin off its cable channels underscores the tectonic shift in the media marketplace and how technology is providing the exit ramp for competing platforms.
When my job as a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News was terminated in February, I took a few months to educate myself about the marketplace because so much had changed since I left Fox in 2019.   What I found was genuinely surprising, a little frightening and, oddly, re-assuring for the strength of our democracy.
You can’t argue with the data.  It is compelling. On Election Day, according to @Xdata, the platform boasted record usage of 942 million posts worldwide and  2.2 million hours of watch or listen time over approximately 160k live events. The X data crushed engagement numbers for the mainstream media (MSM.)
tw profile: Data Data@XData tw
X dominated the global conversation on the U.S. election, hitting all-time record highs.
7:11 PM • Nov 7, 2024
1.58K Likes   278 Retweets
109 Replies
By example, a Tucker Carlson interview on X has 35 million engagements. The CBS Evening News has 4.5 million viewers. If I had to choose, I’d take 30 million engagements on X because it represents explosive growth.
tw profile: Tucker Carlson Tucker Carlson@TuckerCarlson tw
Ep. 12  Part 1. Devon Archer
6:00 PM • Aug 2, 2023
159K Likes   46.5K Retweets
6.4K Replies
The new super consumers of news are flocking to X and other platforms that support independent journalism, diverse voices, and embrace transparency which can strengthen democracy.  This is nothing short of an industrial revolution driven both by technology and by loss of trust in corporate media.
In 2023, Human Rights lawyer Jacob Mchangama wrote about the upheaval and resulting, “elite panic.”
“Elite panic is this recurring phenomenon throughout the history of free speech, where whenever the public sphere is expanded, either through new communications technology, or to segments of the population that were previously marginalized, the traditional gatekeepers, the elites who control access to information, tend to fret about the dangers of allowing the unwashed mob — who are too fickle, too unsophisticated, too unlearned — unmediated access to information. They need information to be filtered through the responsible gatekeepers and it may be even more dangerous to allow them to speak without adult supervision. That’s a phenomenon that we see again and again. And we’re seeing it play out now on social media. … [Elite panic is] one contributing factor to the free speech recession.”
Free speech: Why it’s under attack and what can be done to promote diverse viewpoints
Human rights lawyer Jacob Mchangama discusses threats to freedom of expression across the globe — and why it’s important to protect this bedrock of democracy.
www.aamc.org/news/free-speech-why-it-s-under-attack-and-what-can-be-done-promote-diverse-viewpoints
If you asked me four years ago, if a presidential candidate could skip a 60 Minutes interview, I would have been skeptical.  Four years later, candidate Trump bypassed the legacy news magazine and instead, sat down with Joe Rogan.  As of this writing, the marathon sit-down viewership reached 51 million views.
There is no doubt Rogan is a skilled interviewer who can draw out his subjects and deliver huge audiences. Compared to heavily edited network TV reports, the raw, unedited format reveals much about the subject.  In politics, the podcast is perfectly suited for the “beer question” which measures a candidate’s authenticity and likability.
The progressive Harris campaign took a more traditional media approach and came up short. Neither celebrity endorsements which feel less relevant nor a 60 Minutes interview seemed to move the needle.  The combined audience of the 60 Minutes Kamala Harris interview and its views on YouTube landed at about 10 million, far less than what Rogan and X delivered.
The legacy of the Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview is not her responses but the lingering controversy over the CBS’ interview edit.   And that is where the public’s loss of trust in the media comes in.  I believe this is another driver of the audience exodus.
CBS aired two different answers from the Vice President to the same question from correspondent Bill Whitaker about the Israeli Prime Minister apparently ignoring the Biden Administration.
tw profile: Face The Nation Face The Nation@FaceTheNation tw
MONDAY: On a @60Minutes election special, Bill Whitaker asks Vice President Kamala Harris if the U.S. lacks influence over American ally Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Watch a preview:
2:59 PM • Oct 6, 2024
599 Likes   185 Retweets
316 Replies
Since, a credible complaint has been filed at the FCC alleging “news distortion” at the network with a reasonable demand that the full, unedited Kamala Harris transcript be released. CBS News has said “it fairly presented the interview to inform the viewing audience and not to mislead it.”
In the October newsletter, I explained that releasing the full, unedited transcript would resolve these questions. There is ample precedent.
tw profile: 60 Minutes 60 Minutes@60Minutes tw
With just 29 days until Election Day, Bill Whitaker sits down with Vice President Kamala Harris. One year after Hamas’ terror attack on Israel, Whitaker starts by asking Harris what the U.S. can do to prevent an all-out regional war in the Middle East. cbsn.ws/3U1BTmj
12:09 AM • Oct 8, 2024
422 Likes   175 Retweets
117 Replies
As a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News, I interviewed President Trump at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.  I advocated for and CBS News published the full, unedited transcript.
The CBS News Trump interview was not a special case.  The full, unedited transcript from Attorney General Bill Barr’s 2019 interview with CBS chief legal affairs correspondent Jan Crawford was also shared by the network.  And more recently, 60 Minutes released the full unedited transcript of its interview with Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
If the current trend continues, in the 2028 election cycle, the broadcast networks will firmly take a back seat to podcasts, town halls, and investigative journalism on X.   For independent journalists and small digital newsrooms, the challenge is developing revenue streams that are viable.
In February, I was not comforted by the analogy that losing my corporate reporting job was like getting pushed off the Titanic when there were still seats in the lifeboats. In retrospect, I wonder if it may turn out to be more accurate than I initially thought.
After turning down job offers for which I remain grateful, I began building the Catherine Herridge Reports brand on X and in the newsletter marketplace.  These platforms are the new media beachheads.  Content is King.
I’ll have more to say about the future of journalism and why journalism is called a profession for a reason. Look for exclusive new content on media accountability in the coming days!
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Catherine Herridge

How ‘Woke’ Broke The FB

Published on March 16, 2025

By

 Author  Catherine Herridge

We Obtain Internal FBI DEI Guide On Managing Unconscious Bias

TOP LINE  
An internal FBI inclusivity “Guide,” obtained by our investigative team, counseled agents on “Ways to Manage Your Unconscious Bias,” “Micro-Inequities” and “How to Improve Your Inclusive Intelligence.”
“The New IQ: Your Guide to Sustaining Inclusive Habits in the Workplace” was widely shared in mid-2020 and includes nine “tips” to counter unconscious bias.
Separately, as part of our investigation, recently retired FBI agents said they saw, firsthand, how law enforcement capabilities were compromised because merit took a backseat to DEI priorities.
They dubbed the legendary FBI Quantico Training Academy the “Participation Academy” because of headquarter’s pressure to “push through” poorly performing candidates to meet their DEI objectives.
The retired agents said FBI Director Patel inherits a workforce where standards dropped impacting physical fitness of agents, their firearms skills as well as professional qualifications, putting the FBI mission and safety at risk.
DEEP DIVE
More than a half dozen recently retired FBI agents agreed to speak with me on a confidential basis.  They said they feared retaliation for describing their experiences with the FBI’s DEI initiatives. While fiercely loyal to the bureau, they said they felt compelled to come forward, citing a dangerous reduction in standards that they believe endanger agents and the public.
The group of retired agents was diverse.  It included male, female, Asian, Black and White agents from field offices in different parts of the country.  Their work experience covered multiple facets of the recruitment and training process. Everyone I spoke with offered a first hand account of DEI’s impact.
FBI DEI Guide Defines “Unconscious Bias”
The retired agents told me they valued diversity because it could strengthen the FBI mission but in recent years, the agents said FBI leadership took the attitude the bureau was “too White.”   The decline, they said, began under FBI Director Mueller who made the DC Headquarters his focus.  They said it accelerated under FBI Director Comey. They blamed Director Wray for standing by as the “train wreck happened.”
“Ways To Manage Your Unconscious Bias”
I was told that the physical fitness performance of candidates declined. The requirements include timed sit-ups (1 minute), timed 300-m sprint, untimed push-up maximum and timed 1.5 mile run.
The retired agents described recruits who had an “attitude problem.” The recruits would quit the long distance run or claim injuries if they thought they would not pass a requirement.   The number of successfully completed push ups was routinely low because many recruits didn’t have the skill or strength to follow the required protocol (i.e bad form, not low enough.)
What I learned about firearms training was also concerning.  I was told some recruits lacked the “mental toughness” to competently handle guns. Other candidates had documented mental health issues.  While their performance was poor, there was a “push them through Quantico attitude.”
The backbone of FBI investigations is a witness interview summary known as a “302.”  In some cases, new agents lacked basic writing skills to complete a 302, in part, because work experience requirements had been relaxed.  Once poor performing recruits were “pushed through Quantico,” the hope was that FBI Field Offices would fix them.
While the retired agents said diversity was valuable to the bureau it had taken precedence over merit. They said they looked up to the FBI when they joined and are hopeful Director Patel can restore and reverse this decline.
These retired FBI agents are solution oriented and respectfully asked if Director Patel would be willing to meet with them because they understand where the change needs to happen internally.
Describing how “woke broke the FBI,” one of the agents shared the wrenching personal decision to discourage their child from following in their professional footsteps. Something that would have been inconceivable during most of their time with the Bureau.
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said, ““Director Patel’s new FBI will be an entirely mission focused institution — working every day to get criminals off our streets, keep the American people safe, and let good agents be good agents. We are aggressively working to abide by any Presidential directive to root out politically motivated, social engineering projects — they have zero home here and never will as long as Director Patel is at the helm.”

We are making this exclusive reporting free.  

The full FBI DEI workplace guide is available to our subscribers.
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Catherine Herridge

Return of the Diet Coke Button

Published on January 19, 2025

By

On the eve of Inauguration Day, the time is right to share my personal story about the “Diet Coke” button.
DEEP DIVE
It is a privilege and a tremendous opportunity for a reporter to interview the Commander in Chief.   Any journalist who tells you otherwise is bitter because they can’t land the big interview.
I have sat down with President Trump twice.  First at Fox News, after the Special Counsel Robert Mueller report was released.  The second time, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News.
In advance of interviewing President Trump, I was invited to an informal meeting at the White House. The Oval Office appointment had the tone of a “get to know you session.”
While the meeting was “off the record,” I can tell you that it wasn’t about setting limits on an interview or providing questions which would cross a journalistic redline.  I understood from President Trump’s press team that he made the final call on which reporter would conduct the interview.
Sitting across from President Trump, I noticed a red button on the Resolute Desk and my imagination ran wild.  “What was it, a nuclear button, a panic button, or a get this reporter out of here button?”’
Source: X realDonaldTrump
I was not the first person to fall into this trap.  In his book, “The Chief’s Chief,”  former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows described his encounter with the Diet Coke button, writing it “seemed like something you might use to launch a nuclear missile, or maybe to order SEAL Team Six into action.”
“I braced for whatever sonic boom, breaking glass, or cloud of smoke I assumed was coming,” Meadows added.
With a keen eye, President Trump saw my curiosity, and leveraged it. He leaned across the desk, and in what seemed a very deliberate manner, he pressed the red button. I nearly jumped out of my seat.
Then to my right, I recall that a butler entered the Oval Office with a silver tray and several tall glasses of Diet Coke.   I can’t recall exactly, and it may have been the shock of the red button, but the butler seemed to appear out of nowhere from behind the bookcases.
Commemorative Bottle of Diet Coke
I recall President Trump put his hand next to his mouth, and whispered, “It’s one of the best parts of the job!”
Out of respect for the ground rules, I am not going to say much more about the meeting because it was off the record. As we concluded,  President Trump asked if I had ever seen the Lincoln bedroom which, of course, I had not.  Then he made some quip about the Clintons and you can fill in the rest.
The CBS interview went ahead in July 2020 in the Rose Garden because of COVID-19 restrictions.  The questions were direct. One in particular he described as “a terrible question to ask,” but President Trump still answered each query. With my urging, CBS News released the full, unedited transcript.
Bear that precedent in mind as you consider the lingering controversy over the 60 Minutes Kamala Harris edit.

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