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Comment by jsprinkles | Hacker News Reader

> Why are you siding with anyone if you haven't seen the evidence?

Why are you assuming I haven't? Anybody that disagrees with the author automatically hasn't done the necessary research, in your mind?

I appealed to Morley Safer's incredibly long history with the program for a specific reason. The author of this piece charges 60 Minutes with slander, which is a very big word, and journalists don't have multi-decade careers when they're stupid enough to open up their company to claims of slander. Particularly on a (to them) relatively unimportant story.

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Because you did not engage at all with the facts of this specific complaint. You still have not done so.

It's not clear what a long career in broadcasting has to do with any of this. You're talking about credibility. Credibility has it's place, but it's a heuristic for evaluating claims in the absence of facts. When the facts are available it counts for nothing.

If you want to know whether it's raining outside, don't ask Morley Safer--look out the window.

You completely missed the point of my comment. I am completely noncommittal on this specific allegation, and my comment remains a generality. You clearly read it and assumed I implied the author is wrong or that I disagree with the allegations, which I most certainly did not.

I reacted to the presence of words like slander, which is an entirely different ballgame from accusing Morley Safer of skewing the truth. Slander is a big, legally-actionable word, and you don't bang that drum unless you're ready to march behind it. My point about siding with Safer is that due to his credibility, I'm prejudiced to his side even before being told of this issue.

Nowhere in my comment did I address this specific issue.

I agree that slander is too strong a word. In my opinion a class on business networking sounds a lot like learning to shake hands and make eye contact. Safer trivialized the class, but it hardly rises to the level of slander.

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