{"id":32564,"date":"2018-03-20T07:44:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T12:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32564"},"modified":"2018-03-20T07:45:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T12:45:05","slug":"the-cbs-interview-with-saudi-arabias-mohammed-bin-salman-was-a-crime-against-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32564","title":{"rendered":"The CBS Interview With Saudi Arabia\u2019s Mohammed bin Salman Was a Crime Against Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The CBS Interview With Saudi Arabia\u2019s Mohammed bin Salman Was a Crime Against Journalism<\/a><\/h3>\n
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\u201cAT JUST 32,<\/u> Mohammed bin Salman seems fearless and determined. He has quickly become the most dominant Arab leader in a generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how \u201c60 Minutes\u201d began its interview<\/a> with, and profile of, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, Sunday evening, ahead of his visit<\/a> to the White House on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Launched on CBS in 1968, \u201c60 Minutes\u201d has been described<\/a> as \u201cone of the most esteemed news magazines on American television\u201d and has won<\/a>more Emmy awards than any other primetime U.S. TV show. It claims<\/a> to offer \u201chard-hitting investigative reports, interviews, feature segments and profiles of people in the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Got that? Award-winning. \u201cEsteemed.\u201d \u201cHard-hitting.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why did the segment on MBS resemble more of an infomercial for the Saudi regime than a serious or hard-hitting interview? \u201cHis reforms inside Saudi Arabia have been revolutionary,\u201d intoned correspondent Norah O\u2019Donnell prior to the start of her exclusive sit-down with the crown prince in Riyadh. \u201cHe is emancipating women, introducing music and cinema, and cracking down on corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Move over Tom Friedman<\/a> and David Ignatius<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 in O\u2019Donnell, the Saudis seem to have found a new cheerleader within the U.S. press corps. Forget the Saudi bombardment <\/a>and siege<\/a> of Yemen, described by United Nations agencies as \u201cthe worst humanitarian crisis in the world<\/a>,\u201d which received a mere two minutes of coverage over the course of a 30-minute segment. Forget the horrific Saudi record of beheadings<\/a> and stonings<\/a>, which received zero coverage from the\u00a0\u201c60 Minutes\u201d team in Riyadh. Instead, we were treated to O\u2019Donnell oohing and aahing over the crown prince\u2019s youthfulness, workaholism, and \u2014 lest we forget \u2014\u00a0support for women drivers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The interview itself consisted of one softball question after another. (Example: \u201cWhat\u2019s been the big challenge?\u201d Another example: \u201cWhat did you learn from your father?\u201d)<\/p>\n

So, in a spirit of constructive criticism, and in an attempt to try and push back against the U.S. media\u2019s bizarre love affair with MBS ahead of his D.C. visit \u2026<\/p>\n

Here are 10 much tougher, more relevant questions that \u201c60 Minutes\u201c<\/em>could and should have asked<\/strong><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

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Photo: Alberto Pezzali\/NurPhoto\/Sipa USA\/AP The CBS Interview With Saudi Arabia\u2019s Mohammed bin Salman Was a Crime Against Journalism \u201cAT JUST 32, Mohammed bin Salman seems fearless and determined. He has quickly become the most dominant Arab leader in a generation.\u201d That\u2019s how \u201c60 Minutes\u201d began its interview with, and profile of, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[3849,12442,17012,11708,701,5567,901],"class_list":["post-32564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-cbs","tag-interview","tag-mehdi-hasan","tag-mohammed-bin-salman","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-the-intercept","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32565,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32564\/revisions\/32565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}