lauren ashburn, amy holmes and chuck lane are joining us now. >> lauren ashburn has a right to say what he wants and a&e has a right to take him off the air. do you agree? >> he has the right to say whatever he wants. except he is working for a network that has the right to fire him for saying anything he wants. so he has the right whether or not he should have done it in such graphic terms is another matter. if he had just said marriage is between a man and a woman, this wouldn't have happened. >> or if he had just said i'm a christian and i believe the piebl says thbible says homosex is a sin, it would have been fine. >> it would have been fine. >> was this, at least in part, a political decision on the network's part? >> well, it seems so. in fact, the head of a&e said there were networks who worked on his show that said they couldn't because of his views. i'm totally baffled for why a&e fired him. >> he's not fired. >> well, they suspended him because even tmz is calling a&e out saying they knew about his views. this is a reality show and he is giving the audience a slice of his rea

. >> joining us here in washington, lauren ashburn. chris starwald, digital politics editor for fox news .host of the online show power play. and juan williams, a fox news analyst who has interviewed nelson mandela. what does it say about our media culture? >> the focus is on a nonstory. this is low hanging fruit for the media, something that's easy for them to shoot. they don't have to cover the speech itself, they don't have to talk to people. all they have to do is focus their lens on an event and then talk about it. we minimize real news because number one, sometimes it can be entertaining in the case of the selfies and number two, it is easier. >> chris, nonstory, but let's stipulate raul castro is a dictator. >> the castro brothers are monsters and they have repressed their people for decades. the president shaking his hand, the first one since bill clinton to do so in 2000 is significant. and the other thing that happens in a story like this is nelson mandela was near death for some many months. his passing from this either was

lauren ashburn, fox news contributor and author of the column on foxnews.com. jim pinkerton, fox news contributor, and dana milbank, columnist for "the washington post." given the magnitude of the mistake on this benghazi story, was cbs justified in suspending lara logan? >> absolutely. this was a colossal mistake and something had to be done. that isn't to take away from lara logan and max mcclellan, who are very good journalists. but this is true in any corporation. when something goes wrong, you have to apologize and take action in order to maintain your credibility. >> i'm told the suspension will be for a significant period of time, not just a couple of weeks, which some might see as a slap on the wrist. but jim woods, someone without the track record and star power of lara logan have been fighting this. >> that's possible. an old joke in journalism, too good to check. if you make millions a year, you're obligated. jeff factor, overall in charge of the show, why didn't he suspend himself as well as logan and mcclellan? >> that's a serious suggestion? >> wh

lauren ashburn joins us now. i want to start with this, what's happened to "60 minutes"? have a credibility crisis over these three stories. it's as if cbs lost its compass. first of all, as you mentioned, you had benghazi. you have two wonderful journalists in lara logan and max mcclellan, her producer who have been put on indefinite leave for believing an eyewitness who turned out to be completely and absolutely wrong. and as you said, jeff bezos, boy, did he get a christmas present after their report the day before cyber monday that talked about his drone program, and charlie rose was all gaga about these drones. but not one really serious question about whether or not the faa would be able to handle this, when would this happen, what are the technical problems. it was really good publicity. leland: i wonder how much this has to do with money in the sense that doing ard-hitting investigation -- hard-hitting investigation, sending crews all over the country, sending anchors to stake out people that you want to ask tough questions to, that's really expensive. going to in

ashburn. judy miller, fox news contributor and kirsten powers. lauren, i thought the media were having this wonderful romance with barack obama. what happened? >> i think despite what many people think, the bloom is off the rose. he's been hammered on health care. he's been slapped over the sluggish economy. he's been add mon initialled about access issues. >> and judy, you've been through legal wars as a journalist. was the disclosure of the administration's surveillance of ap and fox news journalists maybe a turning point this year? >> i think it really was and it was long overdue. this love affair between barack obama and the mainstream media, it took something like the associated press, the sustained war on the media to turn the media around and say what's going on here? we have eight government officials or contractors either in jail or under investigation. that is more than all administrations put together. so they finally woke up. >> is it also now a piling oefk that perhaps some journalists try to overcompensate for what might be seen as earlier