unscrupulously chose to broadcast.
Lubomyr Prytulak
cc: Rabbi Bleich, Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney,
Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace.
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 1973 hits since 20Apr99
Morley Safer Letter 6 20Apr99 What kind of people run 60 Minutes?
Women who worked in the "60 Minutes" offices described to Hertsgaard a sexually
charged environment that had more in common with a drunken frat party than a
professional newsroom. - Carol Lloyd
The excerpt quoted in my letter to Morley Safer below is taken from a Carol Lloyd's A
Feel For a Good Story of 17Mar98, published on the web site Mothers Who Think, whose
home page can be accessed by clicking on the link immediately above, or on the logo
immediately below:
60 Minutes Executive Producer,
Don Hewitt.
But the charges against Hewitt make Clinton's alleged behavior look
like clumsy courtship. One woman described to Hertsgaard how
Hewitt slammed her against a wall, pinned her there and forced his
tongue down her throat. - Carol Lloyd
April 20, 1999
Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA 10019
Morley Safer:
I call to your attention the following excerpt from Carol Lloyd's A Feel For a Good
Story, published on the web site Mothers Who Think on 17Mar98. I will be asking you
further below whether the information provided by Carol Lloyd might help explain your
23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom:
The irony is that Hewitt - the creator of the TV show famous for
unveiling corruption and hypocrisy among the powerful - has been
accused of worse deeds than any of the sexual charges leveled at
Clinton.
In 1991, reporter Mark Hertsgaard, author of "On Bended Knee: The
Press and the Reagan Presidency," wrote an article for Rolling Stone
magazine in which he documented Hewitt's own serious problems with
impulse control. Women who worked in the "60 Minutes" offices
described to Hertsgaard a sexually charged environment that had more
in common with a drunken frat party than a professional newsroom.
Correspondent Mike Wallace was singled out for bottom slapping, lewd
comments and unsnapping co-workers' bras.
While today no one would hesitate to call such behavior sexual
harassment, Wallace's cheerful willingness to do it in public - even
in front of a stranger - made him seem like a good (albeit
unpleasant) old boy. But the charges against Hewitt make Clinton's
alleged behavior look like clumsy courtship. One woman described to
Hertsgaard how Hewitt slammed her against a wall, pinned her there
and forced his tongue down her throat. Hewitt vehemently denied the
story and all other allegations to Hertsgaard, while Wallace
admitted his own antics and promised they would never happen again.
Rolling Stone eventually published Hertsgaard's article in a
drastically reduced form, although Hertsgaard says Hewitt pulled all
the strings he could to get the story killed. In an interview from
his home in Takoma Park, Md., Hertsgaard spoke to Salon about the
allegations of sexual harassment at "60 Minutes" that never made it
into print - and about how the "men's club" within the media exposes
other sexually reckless men, but still protects its own.
Your story has some pretty explosive accusations against Don
Hewitt. How did you come to write the piece?
Sexual harassment was not the point of the investigation. I
literally witnessed sexual harassment on my first day of interviews
at "60 Minutes" and women began to tell me about it, so it gradually
found its way into the story. But that wasn't the point, it just was
so pervasive at the time that you couldn't miss it.
What did you witness when you were there?
The first day I was in the corridor talking with a female staffer
and I saw out of the corner of my eye Mr. Wallace coming down the
hall. He didn't know me yet because I hadn't interviewed him, so he
had no idea that it was a reporter standing there. I'm sure it
would have changed his mind. Anyway, just before he reached her she
pushed both her hands behind her bottom, like a little kid trying to
ward off a mama's spanking, and got up on her toes and leaned away.
But that didn't stop him. As he went by, he swatted her on the butt
with a rolled up magazine or newspaper or something like that.
That's no big deal, one could say, but I must say it did raise my
eyebrows. I said to her, "God, does that happen all the time?" and
she said, "Are you kidding? That is nothing." And that led to
people telling me how he'd also unsnap your bra strap or snap it for
you. So he had a reputation for that.
Then I also heard about this far-more-worrisome incident with Hewitt
and that one did get into the piece, although in a much censored
form, where he lunges at a woman in a deserted place, pins her
against the wall and sticks his tongue in her mouth. There were
other incidents women told me about Hewitt, and, of course, (former)
Washington Post journalist Sally Quinn was already on the record in
her book "We're Going to Make You a Star" accusing Hewitt of making
an aggressive pass at her and sabotaging her work when she refused
him.
Was the sexual harassment at "60 Minutes" pervasive?
It sure seemed that way. There's a woman quoted in my story saying
that Mike would constantly have his hands on your thigh, or
whatnot. One producer said that basically Mike Wallace and Don
Hewitt felt this was their right. And that's how a lot of men in
television felt for many years. Women were basically hired for
their looks. You had to be competent too, but you damn well better
look good.
I understand that you had a difficult time getting the story
published in Rolling Stone.
The entire piece almost never ran because Don Hewitt tried to kill
it and (Rolling Stone editor and publisher) Jann Wenner almost went
along with him. They did emasculate the piece by taking out a lot
of the damaging material. You'll see in there that there is one
basic episode involving Don. There were four that I had reported.
[...]
So what did you think when you saw Hewitt taking a stand for
Kathleen Willey?
It was odd to me, seeing Don quoted in the New York Times on Friday
and Saturday as he was hyping Sunday's broadcast. He's talking
about what happened and I just thought of that old Dylan song:
"You've got a lot of nerve."
I hoped somebody would call him on it. In today's Times, Patricia
Ireland, head of NOW, is quoted as saying if these charges by Ms.
Willey are true, it has crossed a very important line from sexual
harassment to sexual assault. And if that's the case, we have to be
very serious about it. Well, the situation where Hewitt stuck his
tongue down that women's throat - that's assault. That is assault.
She certainly felt like she was assaulted. She freed herself by
kicking him in the balls - which they also cut out. She runs away
and then the next day, there was a fancy gala event where you have
to come in evening dress and she's there and Hewitt, this son of a
gun - he's like a randy old goat - he just could not take no for an
answer. She was wearing a backless gown and suddenly she feels
someone running his fingers up and down her bare back. She turns
around, obviously jumpy from what had happened the day before, and
sees the object of her horror - Hewitt - saying, "Don't be scared, I
just think you're a very attractive girl." They cut that out of the
article too.
There's a lot of huffing and puffing within the media about
Clinton's alleged behavior, with a lot of journalists complaining
about the public's so-called apathy on the subject. But in the case
of men like Hewitt, it seems pretty hypocritical.
It's absolutely unmistakable - and Hewitt is an extremely good
example - how most of the discourse about this issue involves people
who have no more moral standing than this ball-point pen in my
hand. And that goes not just for Hewitt, but for many of these
clowns both in the media here in Washington and in the Congress.
Anybody who has spent any time around Capitol Hill knows that a
large number of congressmen, both in the House and in the Senate,
fool around with either their young staffers or the young female
staffers of their colleagues. To any reporter who had their eyes
open, this is not news.
Carol Lloyd, A Feel For a Good Story, Mothers Who Think, 17Mar98.
With respect to Carol Lloyd's statement above, I wonder if I could have your answers
to just four questions:
(1) Is 60 Minutes infected with a slackness of integrity? What Carol Lloyd appears to be
describing in the upper echelons of the 60 Minutes administration - I am thinking
particularly of executive producer Don Hewitt and co-editor Mike Wallace - is a
deep-rooted slackness of integrity: the 60 Minutes environment has "more in common
with a drunken frat party than a professional newsroom," the top 60 Minutes staff are
"people who have no more moral standing than this ball-point pen in my hand," and
executive producer Don Hewitt comports himself "like a randy old goat." Might it be
the case, then, that the cause of your failing to satisfy minimal journalistic
standards in your 23Oct94 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom, and of your
failing also in the years since that broadcast to retract any of its many errors, is
that you yourself became infected by the same slackness of integrity that had already
gripped other of the 60 Minutes leadership?
(2) Does female hiring demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice program quality? If the
top 60 Minutes staff require their female employees to be physically attractive and
sexually accessible, then might the resulting inability of 60 Minutes to retain women
of high professional quality have resulted in a degradation in the average competence
of female employees? One may speak of demanding competence together with beauty, but
what woman of high competence would have hesitated to find alternative employment
upon discovering the harassment and assault and career strangulation that threatened