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Lara Logan: '60 Minutes' is 'very sorry'

"60 Minutes" correspondent Lara Logan issued an on-air apology Sunday night for the now-discredited Oct. 27 report in which Dylan Davies, a security contractor, claimed to have been a witness to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

"We realized we had been misled and it was a mistake to include him in our report. For that, we are very sorry," Logan told viewers at the end of the broadcast. "The most important thing to every person at '60 Minutes' is the truth, and the truth is: we made a mistake."

Logan's apology, which echoed remarks she had made Friday on "CBS This Morning," was an attempt to correct an error that has dogged "60 Minutes" and CBS News for more than two weeks now. But her apology offered little in the way of an explanation for the show's error, which has become a black mark for a program that has long prided itself on the depth and thoroughness of its reporting.

(POLITICO op-ed by Marvin Kalb: '60 Minutes' must do more)

To date, Logan and "60 Minutes" have yet to explain why they did not adequately vet Davies prior to airing the interview. They also have not explained why they did not obtain a copy of Davies' interview with the FBI, in which he said he was not present at the U.S. diplomatic mission on the night of the attack.

For many journalists, Logan's apology left much to be desired.

"Lara Logan says her source Davies insisted he'd told her same story as he told FBI--but that was a lie. CBS put all its marbles on a liar," Howard Kurtz, the media critic at Fox News, wrote on Twitter.

"Wait, so Logan is sorry they "included Davies" in their report? Wasn't he the whole report?" asked Josh Marshall, the editor of Talking Points Memo, the progressive political news site.

"Lara Logan didn't say anything tonight that she didn't already say on CBS on Friday," noted Gabriel Sherman, the New York Magazine staff writer.

In his interview with Logan, Davies had claimed to have been present during the raid on the diplomatic mission and to have seen Ambassador Christopher Stevens dead in the hospital. He also said he scaled the compound’s 12-foot wall during the raid and hit a terrorist with the butt of his gun.

(Also on POLITICO: The '60 Minutes' breakdown)

In his account to the FBI, however, Davies said he was not present at the compound until the morning after the attack. That account was consistent with an incident report Davies submitted to his employer, the British-based contractor Blue Mountain, on Sept. 14, 2012, which was obtained by The Washington Post.

On Friday, sources familiar with the "60 Minutes" report told POLITICO that it wasn't until the night of Thursday, Nov. 7, that "60 Minutes" obtained the official account of events that Davies had given to FBI officials.

The evolution of CBS’s knowledge of the FBI report can be seen in the changing nature of their response to the controversy: On Wednesday, Logan, the correspondent who interviewed Davies, defended the report. On Thursday night, “60 Minutes” announced that it had “learned of new information that undercuts the account told to us by Morgan Jones” (Davies’ pseudonym). On Friday, both Logan and CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager issued full-throated apologies.

That “60 Minutes” could have conducted a year’s worth of reporting without adequately vetting Davies or obtaining the FBI’s report was the subject of much hand-wringing over at CBS News on Friday, according to sources that spoke with POLITICO. For some, it was also proof of a greater truth: that “60 Minutes” greatest asset — its longstanding reputation as one of the most reliable brands in television journalism — can also be its greatest liability.

“60 Minutes” exists in a silo at CBS News, often by choice, these sources said. Throughout their reporting, Logan and the “60 Minutes” team did not seek assistance from their colleagues in CBS News’s investigative unit, many of whom are well-sourced with the FBI.

(Also on POLITICO: '60 Minutes' Benghazi failure invites Dan Rather comparisons)

“The question folks are asking is: Did anybody at ‘60 Minutes’ reach out to anybody outside of ‘60 Minutes’ to vet this guy. The answer is ‘no,’” one source with knowledge of the events told POLITICO on Friday.

“Between John Miller, Chris Isham and Len Tepper you have three journalists who have about as good as sources as you could have at the FBI,” one source said, referring to members of the CBS News investigative team. “Why weren’t they asked, ‘What does that FBI report say?’”

Over the last year, “60 Minutes” has also become freer from CBS News’s editorial oversight. Until the beginning of 2013, the show’s high-profile news packages were overseen by a senior network vice president responsible for standards. Since the departure of Linda Mason in January, that position has become effectively non-existent. Al Ortiz, who replaced Mason, was not given the same editorial control. He was not consulted for the program’s package on Benghazi, sources said.

Kevin Tedesco, the spokesperson for “60 Minutes,” declined POLITICO’s request for an interview regarding the error and both Tedesco and Sonya McNair, the senior vice president for communications at CBS News, declined to say when the network learned about the FBI account.