CBS continues to ignore calls for an independent investigation into their flawed 60 Minutes Benghazi report, drawing a stark contrast with another failed report from 2004 in which the network bent to fears of an organized right-wing boycott.

After vigorously defending their October 27 report on Benghazi, CBS finally pulled the story, culminating in a tepid and harshly criticized 90-second apology on the November 10 edition of the show. But unlike the aftermath of a 2004 segment that used unreliable documents to report on President George W. Bush's National Guard service, CBS has not indicated that they will initiate an independent investigation, nor engage in any further effort to hold the show or its employees accountable.  

In an appearance on MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes, Media Matters' David Brock pointed out that one major difference between CBS' actions following the two failed reports is that in 2004, the network was “scared of a right-wing boycott” because “the right was much louder in the Rather case.” Hayes pointed to the “asymmetry of the pressure on the right and the left around issues like this” and “the ability of the right-wing echo machine to turn” the National Guard report into" the biggest story in the world" as factors influencing CBS' reaction to the two stories:

Writing in the American Prospect, Paul Waldman further noted the effects of the well-organized right-wing campaign against CBS, arguing that “news organizations like CBS are afraid of the right, but they aren't afraid of the left”:

But Logan won't get pushed out like Rather did. The first reason why is that Rather was heading toward the end of his career; folks at CBS were already looking past him. Logan, on the other hand, is young, beautiful (this is television we're talking about, after all), and perceived as a rising star. But much more important is that there was an organized campaign to get Rather, and there isn't an organized campaign to get Logan, at least not one that CBS fears.

[...]

The plain fact of it is that news organizations like CBS are afraid of the right, but they aren't afraid of the left. Big media outlets like CBS are terrified of right-wing pressure campaigns, precisely because most journalists are, in fact, liberals. That doesn't mean the news has a liberal bias (there are lots of biases in the news, and reporters injecting their ideological beliefs about policy into their stories is about the 20th most consequential), but it does mean that they're overly sensitive about being called liberal. The way they usually handle that fear is to bend over backward to be contemptuous of Democrats and to take every opportunity they can to prove that they aren't what conservatives say they are.

For more on conservative media myths about the September 2012 attack, read The Benghazi Hoax, the new e-book by Media Matters' David Brock and Ari Rabin-Havt.