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CBS leadership taking the ax to their 60 Minutes CECOT Special is the latest example of the Streisand Effect.

 

Perhaps you have heard of the Streisand Effect? In 2003 a photographer had taken an aerial photo of Barbara Streisand’s Malibu estate (currently valued at a cool $100 million) as part of a project to document coastal erosion in hopes of influencing our government to act. The project was titled “California Coastal Records Project” and contained over 11,000 photos in addition to that of Barbara’s house.

 

The photo of her house had been downloaded a whopping four times ever by the public. So, what did she do? She sued to have it removed which led to all sorts of publicity about her home and the photo.

 

By the time she lost her lawsuit, almost 500,000 people had gone to the website to view the aerial photo. The lesson: attempts to hide something will lead to more people knowing about it than if there was no attempted cover-up because a cover-up is irresistible to the public.

 

There are millions and millions of people who no longer watch cable television. There are tens of millions who don’t watch 60 Minutes. But, once the Evil Ellisons and Bowdlerizing Bari decided to kill the El Salvadoran CECOT special, that’s all people wanted to see. And because the Trump regime is not only deceitful and petty but also incompetent, the segment was inadvertently forwarded to a distributor of 60 Minutes in Canada, which proceeded to air the segment.

 

Which now millions of non-60 Minutes viewers have seen.

 

As one political pundit commented, “This could wind up being the most-watched newsmagazine segment in television history!” The bad guys never learn. Scandals don’t pay.

 

And rest assured (or unassured, as it might be), next year will likely be even crazier.