Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review April 17, 2001 / 24 Nissan, 5761

Nat Hentoff

Hentoff
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


'60 Minutes' should be ashamed of itself


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- AT its best, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" has been instrumental in freeing people who have been unjustly imprisoned, and in exposing other government and private abuses. But when its producers and reporters are driven by self-righteous bias, "60 Minutes" abandons journalism for rampant ideology.

A particularly egregious example of this was an April 1 segment on the Boy Scouts, reported by Lesley Stahl and produced by Shari Finkelstein. The clear message to the nation was that although the Boy Scouts won a Supreme Court decision permitting it to expel assistant scoutmaster James Dale for publicly declaring himself to be homosexual, various public school systems and private organizations were nevertheless justified in cutting their ties with the Boy Scouts because of the expulsion.

The mother of a boy who has been a Cub Scout for four years told Lesley Stahl: "It's just plain wrong. I can't be part of a group that's discriminating." And a school board member in Broward Country, Fla., is shown stating indignantly, "We shall not, under any circumstances, discriminate."

A basic principle of journalism is that if you deliberately leave out important parts of a story, the result is prejudicial reporting. In this attack on the Boy Scouts' policy prohibiting homosexuals in leadership positions, "60 Minutes" failed to tell its viewers what the Supreme Court said in its decision last June in Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale. Left out was precisely why the Court ruled that the Boy Scouts have a right to "expressive association" under the First Amendment.

The majority of the Court emphasized: "We are not, as we must not be, guided by our views of whether the Boy Scouts' teachings with respect to homosexual conduct are right or wrong. Public or judicial disapproval of a tenet of an organization's expression does not justify the State's effort to compel the organization to accept members where such acceptance would derogate from the organization's expressive message. ... "The fact," the Supreme Court continued, "that an idea may be embraced by increasing numbers of people is all the more reason to protect the First Amendment rights of those who wish to voice a different opinion."

Does "60 Minutes" approve of forcing the NAACP to place in a leadership position an advocate of white supremacy? Or should a disability rights organization be compelled by the state to hire Dr. Jack Kevorkian as the head of one of its units?

Nor did the depiction of the Boy Scouts in "60 Minutes" as just plain bigots say anything about the previous Supreme Court precedent that affirmed the First Amendment expressive rights of other organizations: Hurley v. Irish American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995).

Leslie Stahl did tell us, with approval, that the Broward County School board "no longer allows the Boy Scouts to recruit in the public schools. The local Boy Scouts have lost over $300,000 in city and county grants and donations from United Way."

But Leslie Stahl did not tell us that U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks has granted the Boy Scouts a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Broward school board -- on First Amendment grounds -- from excluding the Boy Scouts from the schools. A spokesman for "60 Minutes" told me that they knew about the injunction, but that it would have taken too much time to say on the program what I've just told you. Later, Don Hewitt, head of "60 Minutes," told me the judge's decision should have been included.

A big point was made by Stahl that no Boy Scouts officials agreed to appear on the program. A spokesman for the Scouts told me they were afraid that their words might be distorted through editing. I think they should have appeared with a tape recorder to document what they said.

But "60 Minutes" could have obtained this statement by the Scouts: "It is ironic, in our pluralistic society, that some who champion individualism, tolerance, and diversity do not practice these principles themselves. ... From the beginning, Scouts are taught respect for different ideas, customs and cultures, and to recognize the right of individuals to subscribe to other beliefs.

"However," the Scouts continued, "respect doesn't include forced inclusion of values, ethics, or morals that are contrary to your own."

As Alexis de Tocqueville said in "Democracy in America," "The right of association is as inalienable as individual liberty."



JWR contributor Nat Hentoff is a First Amendment authority and author of numerous books. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

04/10/01: A case for public executions
04/03/01: At colleges, a fear of free speech
03/27/01: Constitution bars school vouchers
03/20/01: Torturers as trading partners
03/13/01: Supreme Court rewrites Constitution
03/06/01: Testing compassionate conservatism
02/27/01: Are certain lives not worth living?
02/20/01: Misteaching the rule of law
02/13/01: What a web!
02/06/01: All that jazz
01/30/01: History will also judge Robert Ray
01/23/01: History will not absolve him
01/08/01: Will Rice remember Rwanda?
01/02/01: Expanding the culture of death
12/26/00: Media should stop misleading public about High Court's actions
12/18/00: A government that executes children
12/11/00: Caucus speaks out on slavery in Sudan
12/04/00: This year, give the gift of the Constitution
11/27/00: Is capital punishment a deterrent?
11/20/00: Punishing the Boy Scouts
11/06/00: Joe Lieberman's excommunication
10/30/00: CNN discards journalistic responsibility
10/23/00: The basic flaw in the debates
10/16/00: Nader's American history lesson; or: Silencing Jesse Jackson
10/06/00: Hate-crime laws: The real message
10/03/00: Why Clinton was not convicted
09/25/00: Protecting babies born alive
09/25/00: A selective zeal for justice
09/06/00: The power of nonviolence
08/28/00: Should Dr. Laura be silenced?
08/22/00: Trashing the Bill of Rights in Philly
08/14/00: The repressive hand of China
08/07/00: A racial incident on a train
07/31/00: Attention Jesse Jackson: Sudanese children are still branded and enslaved
07/24/00: Open up the presidential debates!
07/17/00: A stealth attack on privacy
07/03/00: Plea to the Congressional Black Caucus
06/26/00: Burning 'bad' ideas at college
06/19/00: Affirmative action beyond race
06/12/00: Students discover the Constitution
06/06/00: The Liar's legacy and America's delusions
05/30/00: Reining in the majority's will
05/23/00: Press swoons for a bunco artist
05/15/00: The China that tourists don't see
05/08/00: The coverage of Reno's lawless raid
05/01/00: In Clinton and Castro's best interests
04/24/00: Elian's human rights
04/17/00: Crime's down, but arrests keep rising
04/10/00: Teacher brings Constitution to life
04/03/00: The Americans who keep disappearing
03/27/00: The censoring of feminist history
03/20/00: Should there be a chaplain in Congress?
03/13/00: Big labor, big China, spinning Gore
03/03/00: The ACLU violates its principles --- yet again!
02/28/00: Still two nations?
02/11/00: You bet we should disbar Bubba
01/31/00: Where was Jesse?
01/24/00: Is suing church for sexual harassment an entanglement?
01/18/00: Will Miranda make it?
01/11/00: ACLU: Guilty until presumed innocent?
01/03/00: Liberty lion should be Man of Century
12/28/99: Drug tests that tear families apart
12/20/99: Get ready for decisive ruling on school vouchers for religious schools
12/13/99: Guess who is taking the lead in anti-slavery movement? Hint: It ain't Rev. Jesse
12/06/99: When we refuse to buy the 'otherly-challenged' excuse
11/29/99: Expelling 'Huck Finn'
11/22/99: Pleading the First
11/16/99: Goal of diversity needs rethinking?
11/08/99: Prosecution in darkness
11/02/99: The accuracy that's owed to readers
10/26/99: Disappeared Americans
10/18/99: The blue wall of silence
10/11/99: Bill Bradley's speech tax
10/04/99: 'Technicalities' that keep us free
09/27/99: Our 'Americanism'-ignorant generation
09/20/99: ACLU better clean up its act
09/13/99: A professor of infanticide at Princeton
09/07/99: The Big Apple's Rotten Policing
08/23/99: Lawyerly ethics
08/16/99: To Get a Supreme Court Seat
08/02/99: What are the poor people doing tonight?
07/26/99: Lady Hillary and the press

© 2000, NEA