Once home to Cronkite and Murrow, CBS News faces integrity crisis amid bias concerns, missteps

CBS News was once home to giants in the journalism industry.

Walter Cronkite – known as “the most trusted man in America” – broadcast from a bomber in WWII on a mission over Germany. Edward R. Murrow changed investigative reporting forever with a 1960 documentary that is still taught in journalism schools today. And Mike Wallace could stir fear in the hearts of interview subjects with a simple phone call from his "60 Minutes" office.

But today the news giant once heralded as the "Tiffany network" is blinking with crisis as the neutrality of its anchors is challenged and the integrity of editing at its most famous news magazine has been questioned.

Many believe the storm of credibility was born two decades ago when then-Anchor Dan Rather's supposed scoop on George W. Bush's Vietnam war service factually crumbled, a miscue so embarrassing it sunk the 60 Minutes II franchise for good.

But a steady run of miscues and clashes in the era of Donald Trump and Middle East war has only inflamed the distrust – at least among conservatives – to scandalous levels and left a cloud lingering over the entire CBS News franchise.

The most recent accusations of liberal bias exploded when CBS announced ahead of the vice presidential debate between Republican Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee, that its moderators would not “fact-check” the candidates’ answers. Instead, CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan pulled a fast one, and several times argued with him about assertions. At one point when Vance answered their questions pushing back, they interrupted him and cut his mic off.

In another event, The Free Press reported that a memo from Mark Memmott,  the network’s director of standards and practices, told CBS reporters not to refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel, though it is the nation’s capital city and home to the U.S. embassy.

But perhaps the most politically incendiary incident, and the one that has Trump calling for CBS to lose its broadcast license, involved "60 Minutes" on Monday, when the network’s flagship news show was caught subbing one rambling answer from Vice President Kamala Harris for a more coherent one.

"60 Minutes is a major part of the News Organization of CBS, which has just created the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History,” Trump posted on social media after the Monday night show aired. “CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!”

The Harris interview was conducted by Bill Whitaker at the Naval Observatory over the weekend and an edited portion aired on "Face the Nation," also a CBS show.

When Whittaker asked about U.S. diplomacy in Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the Biden administration’s desire to scale down the war against Hamas, Harris responded with: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”

But when the question aired later on "60 Minutes," the response by Harris was different.  “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end,” the presidential nominee said.

In an additional social-media post by Trump, he said: “With me, 60 Minutes does the exact opposite! They take everything I say, realize how totally BRILLIANT it is, and take it out. So, with Kamala they add, with ‘TRUMP’ they delete. Like the Democrat Party, THEY ARE A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

While progressive pundits quickly came to the defense of CBS, saying that edits for the sake of time and “concision” are common in news media, Trump’s assertion that broadcast licenses ought to be in play due to media bias is gaining traction among conservatives.

“I want to hold these people responsible. We’re giving them FCC licenses. They don’t deserve them,” Arizona senatorial candidate Kari Lake said Thursday on the "Just the News, No Noise," TV show with host John Solomon. Broadcast licenses are considered a shared "public common" after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, an obscenity case, that the federal government had jurisdiction to manage the airwaves.

Similarly, former Congressman Doug Collins, who has served as legal counsel for Trump, told co-host Amanda Head that some of Trump’s lawyers will be filing an FEC complaint claiming that CBS has been making in-kind political contributions to the Harris-Walz campaign. About the notion that broadcast licenses should be up for bidding anew, Collins said: “If it causes a conversation in the halls of New York, and panic, maybe I’m all for it.”

Michael Whatley, the chair of the Republican National Committee, called the behavior of CBS “appalling” during the "John Solomon Reports" podcast Thursday.

“CBS and 60 Minutes are lying to the American people about what was said and what was done in that interview,” Whatley said. “This is just the latest example that the media is absolutely not going to play it straight.”

Noting the rise of alternative media and falling ratings for broadcast news shows, he added: “There is a reckoning that is taking place with the mainstream, traditional media outlets that’s long overdue.”

Falling ratings are a long-term problem and has caused layoffs – and O’Donnell took a pay cut in 2022 to $3.8 million annually, down from $8 million previously – but as recently as four years ago the vice presidential debate between Harris and then-Vice President Mike Pence, scored 25 percent more viewers than did last month’s Vance-Walz debate.

Another problem faced by CBS is its decision in February to lay off senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge after she reported stories that irritated progressive activists, including some involving the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has launched an investigation into Herridge’s termination.

Herridge went on to say that when she interviewed then-President Trump in 2020, CBS News posted the entire interview transcript. And on Wednesday, Herridge weighed in on the "60 Minutes" fiasco, posting on the X social-media platform: “As Trump campaign calls on @60Minutes to release ‘full, unedited transcript’ of Kamala Harris interview … there is precedent.” The New York Post quoted unnamed sources as saying that "Herridge had pushed for the publication of her full transcript at the time and that it was a “special case.”

“It’s about transparency and standing behind the integrity of the final edit,” Herridge posted Wednesday.

CBS News, which did not respond to a request from Just the News for comment, has posted a bowdlerized transcript of the "60 Minutes" interview with Harris, though it does not contain the "word salad" — as conservatives have called it — response to the Netanyahu question that was aired on "Face the Nation." 

CBS News ran into another issue recently, as well, this time simultaneously disturbing both sides of the political spectrum. During a "CBS Mornings" interview with pro-Palestine activist Ta-Nehisi Coates, host Gayle King reportedly supplied him questions beforehand, causing the right to complain, while the other host, Tony Dokoupil, was accused of a pro-Israel bias, angering the left. Employees at CBS were reportedly so upset at Dokoupil's committing an act of journalism that the network planned – and then cancelled after public humiliation – a group therapy session with a trauma specialist.

In sharp contrast to what CBS editorial leadership told staff on Monday, Shari Redstone, the chair of CBS parent company Paramount Global said that she did not believe Dokoupil had violated the network’s editorial standards when he grilled Coates over the contents of his new book, calling the network's response a "bad mistake."

Paul Bond is a veteran journalist. You can follow him on X @WriterPaulBond.