NEW YORK - CBS ordered 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan and her producer to take a leave of absence Tuesday following a critical internal review of their handling of the show's October story about the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, based on a report by a supposed witness whose story cannot be verified.
The review, by CBS News executive Al Ortiz and obtained by the Associated Press, said the 60 Minutes team should have done a better job vetting the story, which featured a security contractor who said he was at the U.S. mission in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, the night it was attacked.
Questions were quickly raised about whether the man was lying - something 60 Minutes should have checked more thoroughly before airing the story, the report said.
The report also said Logan should not have done the story in the first place after making a speech in Chicago a year ago claiming that it was a lie that the U.S. military had tamed al-Qaeda.
CBS News chairman Jeff Fager, also the 60 Minutes executive producer, said he had asked Logan and her producer, Max McClellan, to take a leave of absence of undetermined length.
Fager said he prides himself on catching almost everything, "but this deception got through and it shouldn't have." There was no word about whether Fager will face any repercussions for his role.
"The 60 Minutes journalistic review is concluded, and we are implementing ongoing changes based on its results," said CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair, not specifying what those changes were.
The 60 Minutes piece relied on Dylan Davies, a security official who was given a pseudonym in the report. The newsmagazine show believed his account that he was at the scene even after he informed CBS that he had told his employers he had not been there - something Ortiz said should have raised a red flag about his story.
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