Latest news with #investigativejournalism
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
From 60 Minutes to Colbert, it's been a dark time for CBS. But there's a ray of hope
The past few weeks have brought a torrent of bad news for those who care about CBS News – the home of the legendary Walter Cronkite and a great deal of investigative journalism over many decades. Most notably, the network's parent company, Paramount Global, capitulated to the Trump administration, unnecessarily – and wimpily – settling a lawsuit by paying $16m, purportedly for a future presidential library. Trump had sued over a story on 60 Minutes, the network's flagship program, claiming it was deceptively edited to favor his then-rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris. After the settlement was announced, Trump crowed that the network had 'defrauded the American people' and was desperate to settle; he also claimed that another $20m in advertising and programming was also coming his way. Days later, another troubling sign. The network decided to dump The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the top-rated show on late-night television, whose host has been relentlessly critical of Trump. Network bosses claimed the move was financial, since the show was losing money. But it wasn't hard to connect the dots and see this as part of an all-out effort to appease the president. The Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren called for answers in a Variety op-ed, asking: 'Are we sure that this wasn't part of a wink-wink deal between the president and a giant corporation that needed something from his administration?' That 'something' is federal clearance for an $8bn merger between Paramount and another giant media corporation, Skydance. (The latter company is doing its kowtowing part, promising to 'evaluate any complaints of bias' at CBS News, appoint an ombudsman to keep watch, and ensure there are no diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Paramount. The proposed merger got approval on Thursday from the FCC, which means that it's essentially a done deal.) Colbert's on-air commentary on the settlement was brutal: 'This kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's 'big, fat bribe'.' Could it be a complete coincidence that The Late Show was canceled three days later? Amid all this, one positive development this week shone through like a wan blade of light. A new executive producer for 60 Minutes – the top editorial role – got the nod. To the relief of many there, Tanya Simon is no outsider who might have been tapped to make the show more Trump-friendly. Simon has deep roots at the revered program – a 25-year veteran of 60 Minutes, she is also the daughter of the late CBS correspondent Bob Simon. She has been the acting executive producer since the previous executive producer, Bill Owens, resigned under pressure, saying he felt he no longer had the full editorial independence he had always enjoyed. Her appointment, of course, doesn't mean no political pressure will be exerted from corporate bosses above her, who seem to be under Trump's sway. 'There is great fear about what comes next,' one CBS News staffer told CNN earlier this month. Simon's appointment offers at least a modest measure of reassurance. She 'understands what makes '60 minutes' tick,' said the news division's president, Tom Cibrowski, in a memo to staff. She's also the first woman, in the show's nearly six-decade history, to be at the helm. If the choice had been a right-leaning newcomer, it's a good bet that top quality talent like Scott Pelley – a former chief White House correspondent and a former anchor of the CBS Evening News – would have quickly headed for the door. As for the future of CBS, once admired enough to be dubbed the Tiffany Network, the outlook is mixed. 'I know that the C in CBS stands for Columbia, but … it ought to be called the Contradiction Broadcasting Network,' wrote Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch. That's always been true, he argued, given the bright journalistic legacy of Cronkite and Edward R Murrow along with some ugly chapters in the distant past. That includes the time when – under fire from the FBI director J Edgar Hoover in the late 1940s – the network demanded that all its employees sign a loyalty oath to the US government. When it comes to integrity, that history of contradiction is bad enough. Capitulation, though, is far worse. And given recent events, it's easy to make the case that CBS – or, more accurately, its parent company – deserves that acronym even more. Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
Free Malaysia Today
6 days ago
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Is Saifuddin calling us liars on Jho Low's whereabouts, asks journo
Last Friday, investigative journalists Tom Wright (left) and Bradley Hope claimed in a YouTube video that Low Taek Jho was living in Shanghai, China, with a fake Australian passport. PETALING JAYA : An investigative journalist has questioned whether home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail was calling him and a fellow journalist liars after they reported that fugitive financier Low Taek Jho was residing in Shanghai, China. 'Is he calling us liars?' Tom Wright said in a post on X. He was referring to Saifuddin earlier saying that police have yet to find any credible evidence to support claims that Low, better known as Jho Low, is residing in China with a fake Australian passport. Saifuddin said Malaysian authorities were working closely with international enforcement agencies to verify Low's exact whereabouts. In a YouTube video last Friday, Wright and fellow journalist Bradley Hope said they had gathered evidence from various sources and newly uncovered documents which showed that Low was living in a mansion in Green Hills, an 'ultra high-end neighbourhood' in Shanghai. They added that Low was using a fake Australian passport under the Greek name 'Constantinos Achilles Veis' to hide his identity. Hope and Wright also claimed that Low was now working as a 'behind-the-scenes strategist for the Chinese government'. His role allegedly includes helping sanctioned companies from China 'navigate difficulties around the world'. Hope and Wright are former Wall Street Journal journalists who broke many of the key early 1MDB stories and co-wrote the book 'Billion Dollar Whale' about the scandal on the Malaysian sovereign fund. Meanwhile, netizens also took aim at the government over its response to the revelation by Wright and Hope. One user on X suggested that the government was still working off dial-up internet, to which Wright commented: 'Please fax us'. Another netizen said that Saifuddin should be working closely with Wright and his team. When another X user said the pair had not presented verified evidence for the claims, Wright referred to the YouTube video uploaded last week. 'Does verified mean it has to come from a government?' Wright asked.
Fox News
7 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump-Russia collusion ‘hoax' has ‘a lot of similarities to the WMD story,' says Matt Taibbi
Investigative journalist Matt Taibbi discusses DNI Tulsi Gabbard claiming the Obama administration 'manufactured' the Trump-Russia collusion 'hoax' on 'The Will Cain Show.'
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Retrievals
Credit - The Retrievals is a stunning piece of investigative journalism from the Serial and New York Times team that demands your attention. Host Susan Burton lays out the story of a Yale University fertility clinic nurse who siphoned off fentanyl from patients undergoing egg-retrieval surgery, leaving them in unspeakable pain. When the women complained, they were dismissed by their doctors and the university. (The nurse eventually pleaded guilty and Yale settled with the patients who sued.) It's a horror story about the ways our health system fails women, told from the perspective of a group of victims whose desperation to have children led them to justify their own suffering, rationalizing that motherhood is inextricably tied to hardship. The interviews with the victims are emotional and delve into complex issues. Some, who happen to study addiction or medicine for a living, actually empathize with the nurse who was hooked on painkillers, while others tie their righteous indignation to larger societal problems surrounding habitual gaslighting in women's medicine. It's a disturbing but eye-opening commentary on the quest to become pregnant, a common journey we do not discuss often enough. A second harrowing season on complications with C-sections, one of the most frequently performed surgeries in the world, released in the summer of 2025. Write to Eliana Dockterman at
The Independent
19-07-2025
- The Independent
Long lost ‘Chappaquiddick' tapes found by son of reporter investigating Ted Kennedy crash
The son of the investigative journalist who literally wrote the book on Senator Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick car crash scandal has discovered his father's long-lost investigation audiotapes, according to a report in PEOPLE. Nick Damore, the son of investigative journalist Leo Damore, has been searching for his father's audiotapes for years. His father, Leo Damore, is the author of the 1988 blockbuster book Senatorial Privilege, which explored Kennedy's 1969 car accident in Martha's Vineyard that resulted in the death of his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy waited 10 hours before alerting the police about his crash and the death of his passenger. Why he did so is still unknown. 'Leo Damore's book went on to sell more than a million copies. It took him eight years to produce the book and required more than 200 interviews, many of which were recorded on audiotapes. In 1995, Leo Damore died by suicide, and many of his documents and tapes disappeared in the aftermath. Among the Chappaquiddick tapes that disappeared were interview recordings of Joe Gargan, Kennedy's cousin, who was at a reunion party with the senator on the night Kopechne died. Nick Damore, who teaches middle school in Connecticut, was only 10 when his father died, and has spent years trying to track down his father's tapes. In 2021, he received a call from an attorney telling him that one of his father's lawyers, Harold Fields, had found a briefcase belonging to his father. 'They'd been cleaning out his house," Nick told PEOPLE, "and they found a briefcase under a bed that said 'Leo Damore vs. Ted Kennedy' and that had all the tapes.' The case contained nine bundles of tapes that included interviews with attorneys, investigators, and other figures closely associated with the case. "It's fascinating to hear Leo in his element," Nick said of his father. "It's like you're watching a master at work." The Gargan interviews are among the tapes located in the briefcase. At the time of the incident, Gargan claimed that he, attorney Paul Markham, and his cousin, Kennedy, had traveled to the bridge where Kennedy's car had gone off the road and into the water below in an attempt to rescue Kopechne. Gargan later changed his story and claimed that Kennedy had instructed him to lie about the events of the night and to claim that Kopechne was driving at the time of the crash. He said he refused to blame the woman. "They were interested in protecting the senator, there's no question about that," Gargan told Leo Damore in one of the interviews. "And they let us fend for ourselves. As well as everybody else." Most of what's contained on the tapes never made it into Leo Damore's book, so his son is doing his best to listen to all of the newly discovered audio logs and make sense of the story his father spent so many years working to tell. 'I'm just scratching the surface," Nick Damore said.
