Jeff Greenfield will soon become the senior political correspondent for CBS News and made his debut on the CBS Evening News last night. Literally the first sentence out of his mouth contained something that was factually incorrect.
Katie Couric wanted him to comment on the history of radio hosts getting fired for racially insensitive comments and his immediate words were:
“Race has truncated the careers of lots of people - very popular New York personality Bob Grant called the African American mayor a washroom attendant, he was let go by the station.”
Bob Grant was not fired for calling the former mayor of New York “a washroom attendant.” He was fired (and later rehired by another radio station) because when he heard news that there was a survivor in the crash of the plane that carried the then Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, he suggested that perhaps that survivor was Brown, and then added, “maybe I just feel that way because I am at heart a pessimist.”
Between Couric’s producer copying straight out of the Wall Street Journal and Greenfield not getting his facts straight, CBS is redefining its “experience CBS News” mantra. Perhaps the network should worry not so much about its effects on (reading from its press release on Don Imus’ firing) “our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,” it should be concerned about the integrity and reliability of its news division.
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