Tonight, cbs news is apologizing for a story it brought on 60 minutes about the attack in b benghazi that killed four last year. Using a contractor who appeared to be an eyewitness, but was not in fact where he said he was on the night in question. The socalled eyewitness did not apparently see the events he claimed to describe. You know, the most important thing to every person at 60 minutes is the truth. And today, the truth is that we made a mistake. And thats very disappointing for any journalist. Its very disappointing for me. Nobody likes to admit they made a mistake, but if you do, you have to stand up and take responsibility and you have to say that you were wrong and in this case, we were wrong. The explosive charge in logans original report was that there was an eyewitness account from a contractor who used the pseudonym morgan jones, who claimed the u. S. Could have sent backup to the besieged facility because he himself was able to go enter it and do battle with the bad guys. Morgan jones scaled the 12foot high wall of the compound still overrun with alqaeda fighters. One guy saw me. He just shouted, i couldnt believe that its him because its so dark. He started walking towards me. And as he was coming closer i just hit him with the butt of the rifle in the face. And no one saw you . No. There was too much noise. To a benghazi scandal fire that was finally in its dying embers, the report was a gallon of gasoline. The next morning, the fox news tour began. Cbs did this story on benghazi and i see criticism from the left. 60 minutes doesnt cover phony scandals. If we dont have a joint committee, were never going to get the truth and where are the survives . 14 months later, the people who survived have not been made able to the u. S. Congress for oversight purposes, so im going to block every appointment in the United States senate until the survivors are being made available to congress. Because of the segment, Lindsey Graham is going to block every appointment made by the president. On that day, on that monday, it was apparent that the socalled eyewitness may have had some questionable motives. David brock on our show that night disclosed that even fox news itself was weary of using the other source. And the other witness appears to be some type of british mercenary who apparently in conversations with fox news, asked for money to talk and so, you know, fox news even drew a line there, but it was good enough for cbs. Turns out, cbs was also publishing davies book. The connection did not disclose during that original report. While fox news may have shied away from him because he asked for money, it didnt stop the same fox news from running over 13 segments. Mainstream validation was even comically evident at a rally for the now defeated virginia candidate, ken cuccinelli, a week before tuesdays election. His warmup acts stalking the crowd with including congressman frank wolf. The man who was going to get to the bottom of whats going to happen in benghazi. I appreciate that introduction and we are going to get to the bottom and if anyone watched 60 minutes last night, you can see why then thursday, the Washington Post report thaging that the account in the book were different from the report he filed with his employer, but cbs stood by their story, continued to defend it, despite multiple queries. Chairman and associate producer says he was proud of the programs reporting on benghazi and confident the source told accurate versions, but the bottom fell out yesterday when the New York Times reporter that mr. Davies told the fbi he was not in fact on scene until the morning after the attack. What we now know is that he told the fbi a different story and that was the moment for us, when we realized that we no longer had confidence in our source and that we were wrong to put him on air and we apologized to our viewers. We will apologize to our viewers and we will correct the record on our broadcast on sunday night. Joining me now is bill carter, reporter for the New York Times. He wrote the story on this today. My heads spinning. How did this happen . Well, i think it happened because cbs was looking to get a new angle on the story. They got a book and in the book, this security man claimed he was there and went tr through what they considered a betting process and decided he was credible and put him on the air. I think they needed a new angle. They really needed this guy to be truthful and they were in the middle of this situation where you know, he was saying one thing to his boss and a different thing to them, but it was a credible reason for that, because he had left his villa when he was supposed to not go to the scene and what he told was a dramatic story and that added a lot of drama to what cbs wanted to report. Even when the issues start to be raised, then on thursday, theres a Washington Post report, it follows this kind of classic cycle, which is ignore, deny, double down. Yes. And i spoke to lara logan before it blew up and she was very adamant about how credible l this guy was. When you talked to her . Yes, she said she believed in what he said and didnt think he had given two versions and the fbi report would prove that. That he gave the same report to the fbi that he gave to cbs and so, that became really the critical aspect with the fbi report. Corroborates it. Two versions of the event, the report, i stayed in my villa, i wasnt there the night i said i saw these things. You have what he told the cbs cameras and the tiebreaker was what did he tell fbi, he was not there. They interviewed him three separate times. Each occasion, he told the story the way it came out in the incident report. He stayed at the villa, didnt go to the scene. I spoke to cbs about that last night and they were obviously taken aback by that. They then spent the next couple of hours themgs checking with their fbi sources and by this morning, they had gotten the same report we had. I want to bring in eric, steven, former producer for 60 minutes. Eric, well, you guys, in some ways, this is not to be uncharitable here, but ill tell the truth. This is a little overdetermined in the case of media matters, like you guys are a liberal group. You fact check conservatives, benghazi, people might say maybe the clock stopped twice a day. You guys were right about this. We have been Fact Checking the story to death and when cbs decided we want to piece of that pie, that right wing media narrative, there are lingering questions when there are none. When this story has been exhaustively researched by congress. Military have talked about what the reenforcement responsible was. When they decided to sort of key into that buzz machine, you talked about you know, fox news the next day for an hour. The senator talking about it. Whats the number one way to know you hit a home run . The next day, a senators talking about your story. They knew it was all predetermined. They were no lingering questions. The conflicts of interest should have stopped them. The des crepesies should have stopped them. This whole thing is a train wreck. I want to make clear here, steven, i dont want to like put a dagger in 60 minutes. I have tremendous admiration. In some ways, its like a miracle it exists in television journalism, which i think is why all of us take it so seriously. What is it like in that building today . Its obviously a very, very difficult day for everyone there, but my question is how much real selfexamination is is being done there. I watched lara this morning on cbs this morning and even though there was an apology, and even though it was borderline mistakes were made, i dont believe there was still an adequate explanation of just what kind of vetting really was done. At the end of the day. Journalism 101. You have a single source. You have with most dangerous thing in the universe. Who is a selfinterested source because the source is trying to sell books. Then you have a story, which is a political hot potato, which can be red meat to certainly one side of the argument and it seems to me that raises the bar and makes it more crucial that you do your Due Diligence and i didnt hear anything in the explanation of what we did to vet that leads credibility to the argument we were fooled. You shouldnt have been fooled. So, the piece is here is that this was basically, you see this story, you think this is going to light up the right. And it did and its also like a box for us to check the next time were accused of liberal media. Remember, we did that benghazi story. The threshold is the imprint of simon and shuster,al l though it has now been recalled. Being pulled out of were trying to get video of them packing up the books. By the way, thats a cbs decision. Conservative imprint that publishes books by glenn beck, sarah palin. I mean, thats the world this story is coming out of. Those are some red flags. They wants to key into it. Theres an automatic audience there, but when youre going to wade into that, you have to be careful. You cannot stain your reputation just because you want to sort of fuel this. One other quick point. After the National Guard story, you know, 2004, 60 minutes, their last real huge embarrassment, they appointed a panel. Did lots of interviews, hired lots of lawyers. I want to talk about that. Famously dan rathers producer on the story of the National Guard documents, forged documents about president bushs record in the National Guard. Had this to say, the story is done to appeal to more conservative audiences. They appear to have done the story to appeal to conservative audiences. You cant avoid the parallels here, bill. You cant avoid them because everybodys going to think oift of it. But to me, this is a far lesser scandal because i dont see this as, people arent doing this sort of in a president ial election, trying to influence voting. I think, i may be wrong, but i think people have to step back and say, look, theres a lot of agendas being played out here. Youre saying cbs wanted to court the writer. But my sense is they werent wanting to do something on benghazi, spent a lot of time, then this guys book showed up. It was a mini perfect storm. They needed to inject a big b12 shot into that benghazi story. One of the things we try to tell some of our students is how to watch television and be aware this that fellows story, had nothing. I mean, in essence, had nothing to do with the same old story they were telling in the rest of the piece. This was a little bit of smoke and mirrors. Lets inject a dramatic, heroic story. I want to say one thing. Getting involved in this, you then see the impact. Because the state department didnt like this at all. They kind of went after this guy. They wanted to go after and so, reporting on this is a mind what does have to happen, or just do diligence and put up what appears to be a fabricator and put the credibility of the cbs news on the line. Thank you, all, really. Coming up, this is the city of pasadenas website. Said here, we have the kind of community, culture and responsiveness attracting attention. They are for one thing related to their government. Their effort to suppress the latino vote. Why a texas Ballot Initiative was the most important election of the week you havent heard about, coming up. Was allegedly bullied so experience is not unique. Extreme locker room hazing is not uncommon. What questions would you ask someone who spent a lot of time in an nfl locker room . Tweet your answers or post to facebook. Com. Ill share a couple later in the show when we talk to someone who was in an nfl locker room for 12 years. Stay tuned. Be right back. Awarded j. D. Powers most appealing midsize car, two years in a row. And right now you can drive one home for practically just your signature. Get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first months payment on any new 2014 volkswagen. Hurry, this offer ends december 2nd. For details, visit vwdealer. Com today so when coverage really counts, count on nationwide insurance. Because whats precious to you is precious to us. Love, love is strange just another way we put members first. Because we dont have shareholders. Join the nation. Baby. Nationwide is on your side earlier this year, the Supreme CourtVoting Rights. Led by a 54 vote, it suspended the important, crucial section 5. Nine states would be free the change their election laws without getting preclearance approval from the federal government. Weve been talking for months about the potential of this decision and this week, we saw it play out in dramatic fashion on election day in one city in texas. Pasadena, texas. A suburb of houston, sometimes calling stinkadina for the stink of its oil refineries. The setting, the iconic fill k, urban cowboy. Cowboy . Depends on what you think a real cowboy is. But like a lot of texas towns, pasadena has changed radically since the days John Travolta walked the streets in a ten gallon hat. A not so small city. The changes come in the last ten years thanks to growth in the hispanic population, which has risen to 68 , making white people a minority in the new pasadena. Luckily for them, they are still a majority of the voting population. While the hispanic population accounts for a majority of pasadena residents, hispanics make up only 32 of the citys voters, but the people who are running pasadena see the writing on the wall. They know there are only a few Voter Registration drives and maybe a bill away from being relegated to minority status. So, this summer, pasadena mayor Johnny Isabel came up with a plan. Right now, the city is run by eight council members. And for the first time in the citys history, there are now two hispanics on the counsel. One is cody wheeler. We kind of came in there, looking to bring change, reform, to really engage in the community and weve called the mayor out on a lot of things we thought werent very honest. In august, he started pushing a plan to shrink the number of districts and replace those two with at large seats to be voted on by everyone in pasadena, and by everyone, we mean the towns white voting majority. He decided to make a full power grab and he didnt care who youd have to step over to get it. To the community, the goal of the plan was clear. I think what hes trying to do is sttrying to stop us from bei able to get the things we need and be able to be the majority. He doesnt like it. Dilute the power of the hispanic vote and hand two seats to the population. Ensure the population could band together and retain their power. What this effectively does is give the south part of town the majority of counsel. It turns out this is precisely the sort of thing section five of the Voting Rights act was designed to block. In fact, Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited this precise type of discrimination from a pre section five world when a Voting Rights act came before the court this year. These Second Generation barriers included racial gerrymandering, switching to at large voting. Its the oldest trick in the book and so recognizable that when a neighboring texas town of beaumont cooked up a similar plan, it was blocked by the Justice Department in december of 2012. But then, the Supreme Court killed section five of the Voting Rights act in shelby v. Holder and isbel made his move. He said were going to redirt the city. The Justice Department can no longer tell us what to do. So, this summer, isbill arguing some dont care about city wide issues, moved to put his own plan on the ballot. The mayors quite aware of what this does, but he just seems to not care. On tuesday, the folks of pasadena went to vote on proposition one and the majority won by a margin of 87 votes. Now that section five is dead, there are thousands of potential pasadenas all across the south. We should note that Patricia Gonzalez who we spoke to in that report is a rez dment that community, also activist. Joining me now, julie fernandez. A senior policy analyst at the open society foundations. You used to work at a desk, getting applications from places that wanted to do changes like this. How common or anomalous is the story of pas dadena . Well, i think change to the method of election are actually the second most common type of voting change. That drew objections during the days of section five, so they were ones that often got a lot of scrutiny because you have to ask the question why and assess the impact in the way your piece describeded. I think whats interesting about this story, a, the Shelby County case that came before the court that initiated the court striking down was actually a change to the gerrymandering of a district of a relatively small town and what i think is interesting is we talk about voter i. D. And stuff happening at the state level. There is a lot of stuff that happens at the municipal level and when the stakes are high, property taxes, school equity, things like that that we dont necessarily see from the national level. Thats part of what we lost here when we lost section five. The ability to know about this stuff. Everybodys going to know about statewide redistricting, statewide law changes. Places like pasadena, texas, clara, alabama, Shelby County, theyre going to be doing things to manipulate late the system, define who the electorate is, that has a significant minority impact and were just not going to know about it because we dont have section five. They range from alabama, alaska, georgia, mississippi, south carolina, texas and virginia. Talk to me about the case of beaumont because that was a case in which you had basically a very similar set of facts. Justice Department Said no way. Right. In december of 2012 is the perfect analogy. Made a change from seven Single Member districts to two at large. Sounds familiar. Sounds similar. And doj determined that was going to have an impact. Theres a concern about there being a discriminatory purpose. We see a similar thing in dallas, texas. I think this is not an unusual technique. The situation where the minority population is growing, you have districts and theres an attempt to say how do you stop that growth from impacting the outcome of the election. Its classic. So, what is the recourse now