RCI President’s reaction to 60 Minutes Piece

Racing Commissioners International (RCI) President Ed Martin has been asked for his reaction to the 60 Minutes Piece that ran this past Sunday on horse racing.

He has issued the following statement as an OP ED to the 60 Minutes Piece.

The 60 Minutes Report on horseracing this week underscores why 68% of the American people have no or little trust in the legacy media anymore according to last month’s assessment by Gallup.    Having once worked with Mike Wallace on a piece years ago, it is sad to see his journalistic descendants fail so miserably.

I had a couple of lengthy conversations and email exchanges with line producers working for Correspondent Cecilia Vega on this report some time ago.  I was shocked to learn that they had already taped interviews in July before they had even requested the information and records, they requested of me.  In other words, the story was already written before the facts came in.    

Upon watching one would think HISA has not been in charge of racetrack and equine safety for well over a year now.   When asked about the breakdown problem Lisa Lazarus’s response was lame at best one year after being in charge.   Excuse me, but “HISA is here and now we’re going to address it” shouldn’t even cut it for a first-year journalism student. 

When asked if drugs had anything to do with the deaths at Churchill Downs, saying “that’s a good question” doesn’t cut it either especially since HISA’s investigation has since concluded and made no such claim.   Mike Wallace certainly would have asked about PETA’s assessment of the HISA review as “disgraceful, incompetent”.   

The piece started with Vargas reporting that the Justice Department is winding down its investigation.    Yet three years ago Stuart Janney promised more indictments that never came. There’s a reason why the FBI doesn’t confirm or deny what they work on.   

Did those public statements undercut an investigation the same way the NBA’s commissioner’s office undercut the FBI investigation into crooked referees as reported by investigative sports journalist Tim Livingston?   I guess we will never know for sure.

The 60 Minutes piece provided no new information and ignored pertinent facts.  When queried by a longtime friend who formerly work at CBS News about the piece, I expressed frustration at its lack of substance especially since they had all sorts of up-to-date information.  

This person’s text to me said it all: “In my experience, stories on off-the-radar topics such as horse racing often originate with someone in a position of power pushing a particular narrative to well-connected news vp’s, who, if they find it intriguing, send it down the food chain to the production units.  But if the reporter comes back with a different story than the higher-ups envisioned, it breeds tension, embarrassment, and might even lead to job insecurity.”

My reaction to the piece is sadness in that there’s not a better story to tell yet for racing and it is yet another example why more and more people no longer accept what they are being told on TV. 

by Ed Martin
(These are personal comments of the author who worked for a decade as a US Senate Press Secretary and had extensive interaction with national news organizations and personnel.)