On Sunday night, the hatchet-job specialists at 60 Minutes were back on the attack against conservatives. It was a 13-minute segment provocatively titled “The Right to Be Wrong.”
On one side of this cockeyed chronicle were the allegedly non-ideological, nonpartisan “misinformation researchers” – Kate Starbird, Darrell West, Katie Harbath – who are presented as people in favor of “fact checking” and opposed to “hate speech.” They line up neatly with the CBS narrative.
On the other side was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who was presented as someone who doesn’t favor facts, but does support freedom for “hate speech.” Stahl refers to “conservatives” or “the right wing” eight times, but never finds a label for her favored “misinformation experts.”
It started out funny, as she told viewers “Conservatives claim that the companies have engaged in a conspiracy to suppress their speech.” The rest of the segment is Stahl unfurling a “conspiracy theory” that conservatives are engaged in an effort to “chill” the “misinformation researchers,” those nonpartisan truth-tellers.
Reminder! Stahl had 13 minutes to report, but was never going to revisit her comical interview with Donald Trump before the 2020 election (sections of which she wouldn’t put on the air). Trump talked of the Biden family taking millions from China and other countries, and Stahl shot back “All these things have been investigated and discredited.” Biden scandal? “It can’t be verified.” Hunter’s laptop? Again, “It can’t be verified.”
The joy of being CBS News is being able to only choose the facts you want to choose, and to refuse to verify what you do not want to be verified. When someone suggests there are other facts and other stories, you turn to “misinformation researchers” to pluck out how the conservatives are the ones who are sloppy with information. Stahl avoided any mention of Big Tech giants suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story before the election in 2020. She questions Jim Jordan about questioning the 2020 election, but not about the pro-Biden suppression.
Stahl also wasn’t going to tell you that her expert Kate Starbird worked from a National Science Foundation grant from the Biden administration and donated to many Democrats.
WATCH: 60 Minutes profiled a misinformation academic researcher named Kate Starbird a “leader of a misinformation research group” that tried to get Big Tech companies to silence conservatives during the 2020 election.
60 Minutes failed to point out that Starbird is a serious… pic.twitter.com/ygogCh9ybr
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 25, 2024
Stahl asked her alleged nonpartisan expert “Did your research find that there was more misinformation spread by conservatives?” Starbird said “Absolutely,” that in the 2020 election “there was more information spread by people that were supported by Donald Trump or conservatives. And the events of January 6 underscore this.”
The tweets from the CBS show weren’t subtle:
After Elon Musk took over X, most fact-checkers were fired. The site is now rife with trash talk and lies.
“The toothpaste is out of the tube,” says Darrell West of the Brookings Institution. https://t.co/ShSbzksR7L pic.twitter.com/2y9pvdgcJT
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) March 24, 2024
Jordan insisted to Stahl that the American people are smart enough to figure out what’s misinformation, but of course, liberals think the American people are idiots when they don’t vote for liberals. The best part of the segment was Jordan marveling at how he’s supposedly the chilling effect! His probe is “intimidating” The poor “nonpartisan” researchers!
Lesley Stahl asks Rep. Jim Jordan: Is his goal to chill misinformation researchers? https://t.co/rlNyIsbg8R pic.twitter.com/Ls8Hu8yQbk
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) March 24, 2024