The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple hammers CBS for its failure to release the unbroadcast portions Steve Kroft’s interview with President Obama. He calls CBS’s actions (and limp explanation) “insulting.”
Left unaddressed is how this possibly could have happened. An honest mistake? A producer who missed the second debate? Whatever the cause, the episode grinds to the detriment of Kroft, who had the prescience to ask the president the question that would preoccupy Washington for weeks. Perhaps it was he who agitated to release this clip.
Critics will elevate CBS News’s selective video publishing to a prime exhibit in their brief that the mainstream media is protecting Obama. Barring a better explanation from CBS News, that’s a hard case to contradict.