60 Minutes: Six sure bets

You won’t be wrong if you make the following bets about this Sunday’s 60 Minutes Duke Hoax episode with Ed Bradley:

1) Kim Roberts, the “second dancer,” will contradict key elements of the accuser’s stories. You can be sure about that because 60’s already told us that at its website and in press releases.

2) Roberts’ statements, while important, aren’t the “big news” in 60's episode. Sixty believes it has much more important news to tell viewers.

If 60 thought Roberts’s statements were the most important news, 60 wouldn’t have disclosed them yesterday and sent out thousands of emails to MSM journalists, bloggers and others saying, “Hey, look at what Kim Roberts is going to tell Ed Bradley Sunday night.”

CBS’s 60 won't deliberately give away its “big news” the Thursday before an episode. You get a reputation for doing that and folks will ask, “Why watch? Don't they always tell you Thursday?

Another reason “Kim’s story” won’t be the “big news:” 60 Minutes knows Kim Roberts’ is a serial fabricator. It’s not going to hang its story on her words. (For a nice appreciation and detailing of Roberts’ creative "talents," see this Johnsville News post.)

3) The big news will come first, when the three indicted players – David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann - tell their stories and 60 says that while it couldn’t fact check everything the players said, everything it did fact check supported what the players say; and second, when 60 exposes DA Nifong, Sgt. Gottlieb and others who’ve framed the players and some other people and organizations who in various ways enabled the frame-up and continue to sustain it.

If you’ve “followed the blogs” and the few courageous journalists who’ve worked to expose the frame-up and its enablers, most of what you’ll hear won’t be new. But it’ll be important and shocking news to Americans who until Sunday night had bought into the false version of the events the Raleigh News & Observer published on Mar. 25 when it reported what the N&O said, without any qualification, was a night that ended in “sexual violence.”

4) David Evans, one of the three captains who rented the house on N. Buchanan Blvd., is going to describe the extraordinary cooperation he and his housemates provided police on Mar. 16.

Sixty will confirm they did and will very likely tell viewers the Raleigh N&O’s Mar. 25 “sexual violence” story was the original source of the “wall of silence” falsehood that so many enablers used to savage the players. ( The N&O actually used “wall of solidarity” but since that falsehood quickly morphed into the generally used “wall of silence” falsehood, I use the latter here. – JinC)

Evans will also say that a few days following their cooperation with police on Mar. 16, the captains met with Duke’s President, Richard H. Brodhead. At that meeting the captains acknowledged the party and the conduct of some players there were very wrong. Evans will also say, and this is very important, that the captains told Brodhead in great detail of their cooperation with police.

5) Bradley will “walk” Reade Seligmann through his calling the cab and leaving the party, riding with his roommate to the ATM machine, etc. Bradley may even ask Seligmann if he can “show our viewers” one of the receipts. Sixty loves to do things like that.

You can bet 60 wants to put Seligmann’s evidence up against the Nifong/Gottlieb “evidence.” Who, beside's Nifong enablers, would miss that chance?

And you know the outcome of that match-up. Talk about a sure bet!

6) Here's the last sure bet.

I’ve confirmed with Duke News Service that 60 interviewed Brodhead.

Now 60 has been working on this story for almost 6 months. They interviewed hundreds of people for the episode. Almost all of them won’t “make the episode.”

But you can mortgage the farm and bet Brodhead will "make the episode."

So what will the Brodhead part of the episode be like?

It’s a very safe bet that Brodhead will offer a lot of “It was such a confusing time, Ed. We were all doing our best. I kept insisting they were innocent until proven guilty.”

Bradley will let Brodhead go on for a while and then he’ll start asking questions such as:

“But President Brodhead, why didn’t you tell the public about the players’ cooperation? I have your Mar. 25 statement here. That was after the captains told you about their cooperation. You say - let me read from your statement

"I urge everyone to cooperate to the fullest with the police inquiry while we wait to learn the truth."

President Brodhead, you didn't make any mention of what Dave Evans and the other captains told you about their cooperation with the police. Why not?”

There’ll be other questions like that, perhaps even a question about why Brodhead has refused to meet with the parents of the players.

By the end of the episode, most viewers will know the truth of what the best of the Duke Hoax bloggers, KC Johnson, has been reporting for months: Brodhead’s silence and repeated refusals to offer his students anything more than a boiler plate “Innocent until proven guilty” acknowledgement enabled the Hoax and its monumental injustices.

I plan to post again tomorrow on the 60 episode.

Full disclosure: During the past few months, I’ve talked with CBS and 60 staffers. It was simple fact checking. I know nothing about what’s in the final episode that isn’t at 60’s website and in CBS and 60’s press releases.

So if on Monday morning I have to eat crow with humble pie, it will be a dish I cooked myself.