Replies

September 9, 2004

Andrew Heyward, President
CBS News
524- West 57th St
New York, NY 10019
Fax#: (212) 975-1893

RE: Attempted Bush Smear Job on Sixty Minutes II

Dear Mr. Heyward:

It is imperative that you take some massive action against the news department at your company. The willingness of this team to abandon their journalistic integrity in the pursuit of a partisan smear campaign is inexcusable under any circumstances. The fact that this is an obvious pattern of behavior against a decent man who happens to be the President of our country at War, is despicable.

Who is running your company, Dan Rather, Terry McAuliffe, or you?

I would have been willing to contain my anger at your company if you had done the decent thing and at least acknowledged in your broadcast tonight that there was a controversy over the truthfulness of some of the documents presented last night. Instead, you are ignoring the issue and this means that you are continuing to do damage to the President’s reputation, as well as inflaming the passions against the President by people who are willing to believe any lies about him, regardless of whether there is a shred of truth or not.

I hope you will get to the bottom of this and see that heads roll. Dan Rather should be at the top of your list, he is a proud partisan and it is taking down the reputation of your network news division. As President, you should act decisively to remove this cancer from your company.

Sincerely,

Rob XXXXX

Rob, these jerks do not care that they are damaging the President, so I think that part should be left out.

Something that would be more convincing, base your complaint on CBS' loss of credibility. You might even mention that CBS used to be the most respected news source in the country and that incidents of this nature are why so many people have lost confidence in their reporting. You could also tell them their blatant commiseration with Democrats is the reason FOX is so popular.

I think they'll get the point.