CBS News admitted Tuesday that an editor made an "audio error" in Sunday night's "60 Minutes" segment on Tesla Motors, dubbing the sound of a revving engine over what the Associated Press poetically describes as the "much quieter windlike noise of a Tesla."
Anchor Scott Pelley, who reported the story, wasn't aware of the added audio ahead of time, a spokesman said. Jalopnik, which first noticed the mismatch, described it as sounding "like they recorded a motorcycle engine and used it to spice up the car footage." The sound has since been removed from the online version of the story.
The whole incident -- the latest in a string of major and minor scandals for the program -- is just kind of strange. One of the major sells of an electric car, after all, is that it doesn't sound like a traditional car, because it's missing that big, gas-guzzling engine. "60 Minutes" appeared to be unclear on that point. The segment nonetheless cast Tesla in an extremely positive light -- enough so that it converted Bill O'Reilly.
Watch it, sans the added sound, here:
Shares