Well that's kind of the MO for this whole circus. The nominee for the job of Director of National Intelligence probably thinks he's qualified because he's watched all of the Jason Bourne movies. The director of Health and Human Services has zero medical training. The Secretary of Transportation's strongest resume' entry is that he was on a reality show, and the Education Secretary's claim to fame is that she helped run a
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"Newsroom culture clash" at CBS News
- Thread starter Mark Roberts
- Start date
Well that's kind of the MO for this whole circus. The nominee for the job of Director of National Intelligence probably thinks he's qualified because he's watched all of the Jason Bourne movies. The director of Health and Human Services has zero medical training. The Secretary of Transportation's strongest resume' entry is that he was on a reality show, and the Education Secretary's claim to fame is that she helped run a
And what were Michael Dell's qualifications as a computer engineer and businessman when he started selling "PC's Limited" computers out of his dorm room?
I could do pages and pages of names of people with the drive, talent, skill and intelligence to do amazing things.
Heck, I was 18 and a high school dropout when I built my first radio station in a million-plus city that already had 40 fulltime stations. It became #1 immediately and profitable enough to build several stations a year for the next 6 years with the same results. I did not even have a high school diploma, but I had other qualities that made this possible.
But what we're talking about is producing a network TV show under deadline pressure. When you're spending your own money, you can set your own deadlines. These people are print people with no experience handling deadline pressure working with union technicians. Put amateurs in that situation in any other place, and it leads to problems.
The other thing is when you're a writer at a newspaper, it's your name on the byline. When you're a manager at 60 Minutes, it's the correspondent whose name is on the piece. Telling him what to say is a very different job than writing your own biased article.
"Amazing things" is nice, but the US intelligence apparatus (or really, any cabinet level agency head) isn't a job for an 18 year old dropout who is "destined to do amazing things." When it comes to critical national security issues, experience is important. Some kid named "Big Balls" who probably couldn't pass a background check is the last person anybody with a lick of sense would hire at a huge federal agency.
Oh...wait. That happened.
Also, ego associated with past successes is not experience. I'm part of a pretty small group of people who are "experts" in my current field, but I don't for a second think that when I get on my next commercial flight I can knock on the cockpit door and say "I've got this captain! You sit back while I fly this thing."
Starting a new business in a new industry from your dorm room is certainly impressive, but you seem to conflate a success story with that person being qualified for literally anything.
I am saying that there are people who are "ready" for success without formal educations. As I posted elsewhere, Abraham Lincoln did not formally study law and educated himself by reading. There can be exceptional people who are qualified for a sophisticated job because they have unique qualities that don't require formal educations.
David said,
And what were Michael Dell's qualifications as a computer engineer and businessman when he started selling "PC's Limited" computers out of his dorm room?
I could do pages and pages of names of people with the drive, talent, skill and intelligence to do amazing things.
Heck, I was 18 and a high school dropout when I built my first radio station in a million-plus city that already had 40 fulltime stations. It became #1 immediately and profitable enough to build several stations a year for the next 6 years with the same results. I did not even have a high school diploma, but I had other qualities that made this possible.
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You had other qualities that made success possible, but the new people at 60 Minutes were not hired on their perceived abilities to make success possible. They were hired because, in the long run, Ellison wanted the merger with Skydance to go through; and then he needed people who pleased the White House, so there would not be another lawsuit with a multi-million dollar settlement.
The new people at 60 Minutes were not hired because it was hoped that they might have some latent, undiscovered talent at production of broadcast news. They were hired to keep the peace with the White House and to acquiesce peacefully when the White House felt a new story was too critical. It's all transactional, which is what concerns Pelley. People on the team who had proven beyond a doubt that they DID have talent, were let go. New people were hired because they were agreeable to "putting their thumb on the scale" to create a story favorable to the White House and to get along with the prevailing mindset in D.C. That's different than hiring someone untested who is thought to be a diamond in the rough, a hidden spark to create a better product. -- D.
And what were Michael Dell's qualifications as a computer engineer and businessman when he started selling "PC's Limited" computers out of his dorm room?
I could do pages and pages of names of people with the drive, talent, skill and intelligence to do amazing things.
Heck, I was 18 and a high school dropout when I built my first radio station in a million-plus city that already had 40 fulltime stations. It became #1 immediately and profitable enough to build several stations a year for the next 6 years with the same results. I did not even have a high school diploma, but I had other qualities that made this possible.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
You had other qualities that made success possible, but the new people at 60 Minutes were not hired on their perceived abilities to make success possible. They were hired because, in the long run, Ellison wanted the merger with Skydance to go through; and then he needed people who pleased the White House, so there would not be another lawsuit with a multi-million dollar settlement.
The new people at 60 Minutes were not hired because it was hoped that they might have some latent, undiscovered talent at production of broadcast news. They were hired to keep the peace with the White House and to acquiesce peacefully when the White House felt a new story was too critical. It's all transactional, which is what concerns Pelley. People on the team who had proven beyond a doubt that they DID have talent, were let go. New people were hired because they were agreeable to "putting their thumb on the scale" to create a story favorable to the White House and to get along with the prevailing mindset in D.C. That's different than hiring someone untested who is thought to be a diamond in the rough, a hidden spark to create a better product. -- D.
There's a big difference between "ready" for success, and actually being qualified for a position. There are positions that require an education no matter how "exceptional" the person may eventually become. Handing over an entire federal agency with thousands of employees and a multi-million dollar budget that is also responsible for the well-being of a significant number of American citizens on the hunch that they might be the next Abe Lincoln doesn't exactly make sense from either a business or a government perspective.
When it comes to international relations between major powers (for example), you want the most experienced and qualified people to be sitting down at the proverbial "international poker game where everyone cheats." Not that 18 year old kid you "really believe in." Or your buddy in the concrete business who is successful enough to buy a new truck to haul his boat out to the lake.
Oh, and Abe Lincoln was 52 years old when he assumed the office of the President, not some kid just out of college.
This is comedy, right? It feels like it has to be.
I've run some live streams for a community event. Am I ready to produce 60 Minutes? Don't pretend for one moment that for all your "pages and pages" (lol) of names that were you in charge of a network that you would put me in charge of producing a program, no matter what my self-professed drive, talent and skills may be.
Heck, I ran a lemonade stand. Why hasn't WalMart come calling to be in charge of their commerce operations? I proved by drive, my talent and skill.
You know what would fill many more pages and pages? The lists of people who had lots of talent, lots of drive, lots of intelligence and lots of skills who failed in their roles. Not for lack of those traits. But for lack of real-world experience. For lack of understanding the realities of the role in which they found themselves. Sometimes for hubris. Sometimes for gross misconduct. Sometimes just for not being the right person for a role.
Bari has already failed spectacularly. The evening news program is remarkably somehow in worse shape than she found it. They can't even competently book a place for their anchor to broadcast from the same country as the president on a significant overseas trip. Her track record before CBS already showed she was not the person for this role if it were actually to be filled by someone....well, let's set the bar at competent. Even that would be a stretch for where CBS is now.
We also know she was not hired for that reason. She was willing to be the person who swung the sledgehammer on behalf of her bosses. She isn't there to build, she's there to demolish. She's there to appease a certain political interest, and destroy objectivity in the process.
No, it's more of the same gaslighting horseshit.
Look guys, we know exactly what would be said here and by whom if Joe Biden had put someone with Pulte's exact resume' into the DNI post, and we know it would only have been worse if Kamala Harris had won the election and done the exact same thing.
Supporting a guy like Pulte in that role is inherently political---it's standing up for the team. Opposing him is not---it's standing up for the bare minimum in standards and expertise that we have relied on to keep our country and our people safe.
Michael Dell's qualifications were that he was born well-off. His father was an orthodontist; his mother was a successful stockbroker, and he was in the pre-med program at one of the five best land-grant institutions in the country. He was risking little to nothing in starting his business. He always had a safe place to land and already had a future planned if his side hustle didn't work.
Most of those people had something else, too. It's called money. That's the biggest and best indicator of whether a new business will succeed. It also opens more doors than anything else. I always love watching Shark Tank and hearing Mark Cuban tell aspiring entrepreneurs that he worked as a bartender while getting his first business started. Granted, his family wasn't as well-off as Dell's, but he wasn't JUST a bartender. He was a bartender with a business degree from Indiana University and several years of experience in financial IT. He had plenty of career prospects, all reasonably lucrative, to fall back on if his start-up failed.
If you did that completely on your own without the support of your family, that's a great story, and you really should be proud of it. Understand, however, that you are the exception to the rule. Yes, people who make it out of sheer grit and determination do exist, but, if you're running a business, you're always better off looking for a candidate with education, experience, or the right combination of the two. Hiring on moxie alone is the equivalent of investing your retirement in the lottery.
There's a difference between having formal education and having knowledge & experience. Nobody says Bari Weiss needs a college education. She has to know how to produce network TV. That isn't something you're born with or can fake.
That doesn't seem accurate. See It Now had a long run after that.
My research doesn't align with your contentions here. I'm certainly glad to consider what you're sourcing this from, if you care to share it.
But to assert it was somehow primarily, or even significantly related to his McCarthy reporting, reporting which, rightfully, brought widespread praise to CBS, is just sloppy and inaccurate.
Not at all. His segment appears every Friday.
See It Now lost its sponsorship at the end of the 54-55 season. Because of that, the show gave up its regular timeslot.
See It Now — Encyclopedia of TV & Radio
www.tvencyclopedia.org
So far. What's the future?
Correct. What caused Murrow to be more of a headache than CBS wanted to deal with was "Harvest of Shame" in 1960.
There was enormous sponsor pressure (cigarette manufacturers were among the largest advertisers at the time), and CBS chose to bury the airing on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
There is one other thing you need to have when starting a business, *any* business. And that is luck! Yes, hard work is important; and yes, having financial connections through family or other sources is even more so. But starting a new business, whether it be a radio or TV station or a marketing firm requires that the people you are seeking money from *wish* to purchase your product. You can have the best intelligence, educational background, financial resources and connections, promotions, literally anything, but if people just don't want to purchase the product or service you are trying to sell, then your business will fail. Period!
And, to bring this back to CBS News (yes, this thread is supposed to be about that), it really isn't going to matter in the long run whether the White House, myself or anybody else approves of what David Ellison and Bari Weiss are doing at CBS News, even to "60 Minutes." All that matters is how the broader audience reacts, and to date, that reaction, outside of the White House, has been an absolute bomb!
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In a sane world that's how it works, Ted. But authoritarianism around the world over the past few decades has generally manifested exactly this way---a democratically-elected leader shatters norms, restricts rights and cracks down on independent media so that they are for all intents and purposes state-run media---unwilling, even if technically able, to challenge the government.
It's never a bonanza for raw ratings and spot sales, but it keeps them out of hotter water, generally makes acquisitions or initiatives requiring government approval smoother and they get to stay on the air.
There is a difference between the cowards who comply in advance to avoid trouble and those who are willing to help advance the authoritarian agenda, but sometimes you have to squint really hard to see them.
The only reason there is little doubt as to the Ellisons' motives is that there were ties between them and Trump prior to the Skydance merger.
The president apparently doesn't approve of CBS News, regardless of who's in charge, or what they do. He said so on Sunday:
Everybody is crooked except for the president. In his world, he won with 94% of the electorate. He keeps telling himself that.