Amidst the corrections, critiques and internal investigations, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) called upon CBS News to rethink the way the network is handling key aspects of the correction. AEJMC president Paula Poindexter notes that the original and incorrect version of the story has been scrubbed from both the CBS News online archive and the 60 Minutes You Tube Channel, “as if to say the Benghazi report never existed.”
“This handling of the report and its correction will likely further damage the public’s already low opinion of journalism. The Pew Research Center has found that only 18 percent of the public believes the press is “willing to admit mistakes” and almost three-quarters believe news organizations “try to cover up mistakes.” Recognizing how important correcting mistakes is to the public’s trust in journalism, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the largest association of journalism and communication educators in the world, calls upon 60 Minutes to return the original broadcast to its website and YouTube channel.
“Correcting an inaccurate broadcast that has aired is challenging, but in today’s digital world, it can be done in a way that simultaneously preserves the original broadcast for the historical and journalistic record and tells the truth about the inaccurate content. Therefore, AEJMC recommends that 60 Minutes embed the original report together with Logan’s official correction and the link to her Nov. 8, 2013 CBS This Morning interview in which she answered tough questions about events that led to the defective report. Additionally, a correction should be superimposed across the video so there is no misunderstanding about the inaccurate content in the report.”
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