False Allegations
60 Minutes On Werner Erhard

 

CBS voluntarily acknowledged its 1991 60 Minutes program about Werner Erhard was inaccurate.

The March 1991 segment and transcript of 60 Minutes was removed by CBS from public access.

“The ‘60 Minutes’ segment was filled with so many factual discrepancies that the transcript was made unavailable with this disclaimer: ‘This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons.’” [The Believer, Vol. 1, No. 2, May 2003, p.27]

In March 1991, CBS aired a 60 Minutes segment on Werner Erhard with scurrilous accusations of Mr. Erhard’s character.

It was disclosed by the Los Angeles Times in December 1991 that Scientology orchestrated an attack on Werner Erhard by using private investigators to generate and feed false information to the media, including to 60 Minutes.

By 1999, investigative journalists, including ABC, Time Magazine, The Times (London), and The Boston Globe finally were able to expose allegations aired on the 60 Minutes program as false, and as a result CBS repudiated its 60 Minutes report and removed the program from public distribution because of these inaccuracies.

CBS took this action at their own initiation as a matter of journalistic integrity because the accusations made during the program proved to be false, and not as a result of any legal pressure from Mr. Erhard as has been falsely reported.