Last week, Dr. Jonathan LaPook, the chief medical correspondent for CBS News, hosted a small gathering at his Manhattan home for the correspondents and producers purged from "60 Minutes" earlier this year, in what has become known as "Black Thursday." The event was attended by the newsmagazine's former executive producer, Tanya Simon, and former correspondent Scott Pelley. Current correspondents in attendance included both Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker.
The get-together was supposed to be a private affair, simply allowing the "60 Minutes" team to bid farewell to colleagues, many of whom they thought of as members of their own family. In fact, I'm told that LaPook, who did not respond to a request for comment, asked guests to treat it as an off-the-record event.
Of course, at such events, nothing is ever really off the record—and in the days that followed, I learned of some particularly striking comments that Whitaker delivered. According to people familiar with the matter, the famed correspondent…
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