MORE FROM SHARYL – AT 10:17 A.M. ET:   Sharyl Attkisson is turning out to be a major thorn in the side of CBS News.  A former star at the network, she found herself increasingly at odds with what she charges was a pro-Obama bias.  She is charging a cover-up over Benghazi.  From Newsmax: 

Former CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson says CBS News executives kept a clip of President Obama refusing to call the Benghazi attacks terrorism secret until after the election in order to help Obama's re-election.

Obama was interviewed by Steve Kroft for "60 Minutes" the Sunday following the attack and said, "Well, it's too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved. But, obviously, it was an attack on Americans."

That clip did not air as part of the original interview, but the full transcript was sent to the "CBS Evening News" staff.

Mitt Romney brought up during one of their 2012 presidential debates Obama's failure for 14 days to label the attack terrorism. Attkisson said that would have been the perfect time to have brought out the clip.

Appearing Sunday on Fox News Channel's "MediaBuzz," Attkisson said, "That exchange, I believe, should have been pulled out immediately after the debate, which would have been very newsy at the time.  It was exclusive to CBS. It would have, it appears to me, proven Romney's point against Obama. But that clip was kept secret."

Attkisson said she was covering Benghazi, yet no one told her about the clip, instead directing her to another clip from the same interview that made Obama sound like he had labeled the act terrorism from the beginning.

"And it was only right before the election that somebody kind of leaked out the transcript to others of us at CBS and we were really shocked. We felt that there had been something very unethical had been done to have kept that up," Attkisson said.

COMMENT:  It's disturbing.  I'm not going to claim that this kind of thing only started with the Obama administration.  There have always been disturbing practices in journalism, and ethical failures, and incidents of bias. 

The problem, in my view, is that too many in journalism now accept bias as normal, and even desirable.  Far from wanting to "report the news without fear or favor," they want to "make a difference."  That's an entirely different view of what journalism is, and far different from the understanding of the American people.  These "make a difference" journalists are changing the very premise of their profession.  It is dangerous to journalism, and dangerous to the First Amendment. 

While the First Amendment does not say so explicitly, the American people understand a free press to be a barrier between themselves and government, the institution on which they can depend for the truth, or at least an attempt to get the truth.   If that understanding is violated, I think support for freedom of the press will decline, and a free press will become increasingly suspect.  That is what is happening today.  Fortunately, we have the internet.  In the end, that mechanism may save journalism as we want it to be.

November 10, 2014