Tonight’s “60 Minutes” devoted the entire hour to Scott Pelley’s interview with former Navy SEAL Team 6 member Mark Owen — not his real name — who’s written the first and only public account of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. “Owen” was in the first Blackhawk that crashed landed in Bin Laden’s compound, he was one of two SEALs who shot Bin Laden, and he was the one that took the photos of a dead Bin Laden. While The Pentagon is not pleased with “No Easy Day” — they say Owen violated a secrecy agreement — Owen tells Pelley he’s “had nothing but an outpouring of support from the guys who know me.”
At the close of tonight’s show, Pelley also said:
When word of the book came out last month, a cable news channel learned Mark Owen’s real name and reported it. Since then, others have reported his name. We will not.
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Without naming the network, Pelley is referring to Fox News. Interestingly, the person who wrote the story on FoxNews.com is Pentagon producer Justin Fishel, the grandson of the late, longtime “60 Minutes” essayist Andy Rooney. Pelley was one of a few CBS colleagues who spoke at Rooney’s memorial service earlier this year.