"60 Minutes" Hewitt to Personally Apologize for Airing Fake Story
Bill Nalty
`60 Minutes' to apologize for airing material from faked documentary
12/10/98 02:10:30 PM
By DAVID BAUDER AP Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- ``60 Minutes'' will deliver an unusual on-air apology
Sunday for airing a story about heroin smuggling that a British panel
has determined was a fake.
The CBS report was based on ``The Connection,'' a British documentary
that said Colombia's Cali drug cartel had opened a new heroin smuggling
route to London. It aired on ``60 Minutes'' on June 1, 1997.
After the film's authenticity was challenged, an independent panel of
lawyers and TV producers investigated and determined that producers had
faked locations and paid actors to portray drug couriers.
Don Hewitt, executive producer of ``60 Minutes,'' will read the apology
at the end of Sunday's show. It will be the first time Hewitt has
appeared in front of cameras on the program he has produced since 1968.
``We, you and television viewers in 14 other countries were taken. To
make amends, we felt obligated to lay it all out in detail and ask you
to please accept our apology,'' Hewitt's statement reads.
The newsmagazine showed a film clip purporting to show a courier eluding
authorities by swallowing fingers of a latex glove filled with heroin.
But investigators found there was no evidence the person was carrying
heroin ``rather than sugar, flour or mints.''
The ``60 Minutes'' report was narrated by Steve Kroft. Upon getting the
documentary, ``60 Minutes'' interviewed documentary producer Marc de
Beaufort and was satisfied he had a good reputation, Hewitt said. De
Beaufort has blamed a researcher for the ``alleged fakery'' and said he
didn't believe the panel's conclusions.
CBS also checked with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and was told that
swallowing rubber containers filled with heroin was a smuggling
technique used by the Cali cartel, Hewitt said.
``I think we did our job pretty good in checking it and taking it to the
Drug Enforcement Agency,'' he said. ``Can you always be 100 percent sure
when you do a story based on somebody else's reporting from the
outside?''
The episode will make ``60 Minutes'' reluctant to rely on stories
largely reported by others, he said.
No ``60 Minutes'' employee will be disciplined for a role in airing the
story, he said.
Carlton Communications, which made ``The Connection'' for the British
network Independent Television, has said it will return the eight awards
won by the documentary. The company also promised to refund the money
paid by broadcasters for the rights to show it.
The documentary was aired at least twice in the United States on the
Cinemax network, and portions were provided free to ``60 Minutes.''
Cinemax also plans an on-air apology at some point, said Quentin
Schaffer, spokesman for HBO Productions, which owns Cinemax.
The incident adds to the media's rough year. In July, CNN apologized and
retracted a story alleging the U.S. military used nerve gas on Vietnam
War defectors. ``60 Minutes'' also learned this summer that it and other
media outlets were snookered by a convicted killer from Massachusetts
who had won release from prison partly on false claims that he served in
Vietnam.
AP-CS-12-10-98 1506EST
http://www.post-dispatch.com/postnet/news/wires.nsf/National/A046BCD52A845845862566D6006E803C
Billy Beck
Bill Nalty <biln...@bellsouth.net> posted:
>http://www.post-dispatch.com/postnet/news/wires.nsf/national
>
>
>`60 Minutes' to apologize for airing material from faked documentary
>
>12/10/98 02:10:30 PM
>
>By DAVID BAUDER AP Television Writer
>
>NEW YORK (AP) -- ``60 Minutes'' will deliver an unusual on-air apology
>Sunday for airing a story about heroin smuggling that a British panel
>has determined was a fake.
Fuck Don Hewitt with a pile-driver.
The rat bastard didn't hesitate to resucitate The Lying Bastard's
'92 campaign with selective editing of the First Grapple's interview,
and he was later proud of it.
Who needs him?
Billy
VRWC fronteer
http://www.mindspring.com/~wjb3/promise.html
UltraZ
wrote:
>http://www.post-dispatch.com/postnet/news/wires.nsf/national
>
>
>`60 Minutes' to apologize for airing material from faked documentary
>
Hewitt's the little bastard who drove the Clinton's onto the airwaves
with false apologies and more lies and should be strung up by the
balls and driven from the media.