Posted on 01/16/2005 2:04:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
After an independent investigation concluded that much of a "60 Minutes Wednesday" segment on President Bush's service record was wrong, incomplete and unfair, four veteran CBS News executives found themselves shown the door to West 57th Street.
Yet the real surprise to many observers — both inside and outside the Eye Network — was that anchor Dan Rather and longtime CBS News President Andrew Heyward weren't also asked to leave.
Rather, 73, already had volunteered to step down from the anchor chair in March, though he'll continue to do reports for the network. But media watchers say Heyward, a Hastings-on-Hudson resident who holds the second-longest tenure of any CBS News president, is the one who needs to hustle if he wants to keep his job.
"Heyward didn't get off scot-free, because he's still there," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "If he wants to be there for the long haul, he's got to roll up his sleeves."
Heyward, 54, declined to be interviewed, but on Monday, CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves released a statement that praised Heyward's "integrity and talent." In the same paragraph, though, Moonves noted that the botched broadcast "raises questions about accountability at CBS News — questions that will have to be addressed both by Andrew Heyward and me."
There are certainly questions about where Heyward can go from here. As head of a scandal-scarred, third-place news organization, he faces myriad challenges: how to rally a battered staff; regaining the confidence of the CBS audience; figuring out how to safeguard journalistic standards without compromising aggressive reporting; and helping to decide who will replace Rather, the public face of the news operation.
These are hardships that would daunt any news executive — but they're particularly difficult for someone working in an environment where some colleagues and pundits feel his head should be on the chopping block, too.
"I'm told he has shared with people that he feels a certain sorrow and guilt about being the guy who survived," said New Yorker writer Peter Boyer of Ossining, a former CBS staffer who wrote the book, "Who Killed CBS?: The Undoing of America's Number One News Network."
"It's got to be very difficult to make the tough decisions that have to be made in the course of running a news division of that size and nature if you don't have the trust and respect of the people who work for you," Boyer added. "Andrew's got a chore ahead of him."
News employees will have an opportunity to discuss the incident with Heyward, who is planning to visit each CBS News program in the coming weeks, as well as some of the organization's 19 U.S. and international bureaus. He'll answer questions and allow employees to vent.
The network also has appointed Linda Mason, a CBS News employee with 39 years of service, to the newly created position of senior vice president of standards and special projects. Reporting directly to Heyward, she will review the use of confidential sources and materials related to investigative reports.
When asked how Heyward might handle calls for his resignation from within the organization, Mason said: "I think he's got to ignore that. There's always disagreement, and we just have to continue to do what we do. We have to get back the viewers' trust," Mason said. "I think we will do that story by story, day by day."
Meanwhile, some say Heyward also needs to better explain what led to the breakdown in CBS' journalistic standards. The panel found that the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes Wednesday" broadcast, a report that Bush had received special treatment in the Texas Air National Guard, was rushed to air to beat the competition without properly vetting critical documents and sources.
Rosenstiel describes the 224-page report on the incident, compiled by former U.S. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and retired Associated Press chief Louis Boccardi, as a "very exhaustive incident report."
"There is a presumption implied in the report and Moonves' reaction that these things were isolated," Rosenstiel said. "I think it may be dangerous to assume that."
Comparisons have been drawn to other recent journalism scandals at The New York Times and USA Today, where reporters were caught inventing or plagiarizing stories, and top editors were forced out.
Seth Mnookin, author of "Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media," points out that members of upper management in those cases were thought to have turned a blind eye to red flags popping up repeatedly in their newsrooms.
It's not clear whether that was the problem at CBS, Mnookin said. Still, Heyward's leadership skills may be in question: The report stated that Heyward's explicit directives to check sourcing in the segment were not carried out.
"When we have leaders giving orders that are roundly ignored, it doesn't speak well to the person's ability to run a large news operation," Mnookin said. "Without knowing the intimate details of how that operation is run, it's hard to know how to interpret that, but it certainly doesn't look good."
CBS' Mason defends her boss's position, pointing out that Heyward would get nothing done as president if he had to approve every single story that is broadcast.
"He appoints lieutenants that get the job done, and he has to trust them," she said. "He can't be everywhere, and up until now, it's been a good arrangement."
Of course, mistakes made by those lieutenants led to CBS News' current problem. Terence Smith, who worked at CBS News for 13 years and now is media correspondent for "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," said staff and budget cuts and pressure to increase ratings and revenue were contributing factors that allowed the segment to air before it was ready.
"These forces and pressures created a strong competitive drive at CBS News to be first, and sometimes, to be flashy," Smith said. "So I think they have to … recommit themselves to observing their own professional standards. And the only way to prove that is to do it."
Replacing Rather is another thorny issue for Heyward and the news division, a decision that has been complicated by the "60 Minutes Wednesday" debacle. Unlike NBC, which groomed Brian Williams for nearly two years before he took over for Tom Brokaw, CBS hasn't named a successor.
So analysts say CBS management is now in an awkward position: The network could show confidence in its news staff and promote someone from within, but reported front-runners John Roberts and Scott Pelley haven't generated a lot of much-needed buzz.
Or CBS could hire outside talent, a move that could be seen as marking a new beginning or not having faith in current employees.
Regardless, Rosenstiel said the decision can't be part of a public relations ploy.
"If they view these types of fiascos as a PR matter, fundamentally, you'll screw it up. PR flows out of understanding what happened and then changing it," he said. "They just need to choose the best person for the job."
Boyer, however, wonders if Heyward will be at CBS News long enough to influence that choice.
"This story hasn't finished unfolding," he said. "And when it does, I think there will be more changes, and they'll be significant."
If he's just a talking head, why is he paid so much?
I don't believe it for a minute. According to early leaks, while it was in preparation several lower level executives complained that they thought the documents were bogus, but Rather pushed ahead anyway.
Also he said he had unimpeachable sources and expert testimony. It turns out he had neither. The experts TOLD him from the first that they could not vouch for the authenticity of the documents or the signatures. That seems clear enough.
I don't see why Les Moonves shouldn't leave, too, while we're at it. The man is a disaster.
Yeah, well, so far CBS News is:
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Media Shenanigans/ Schadenfreude  |
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2. Someone broke the law. Forging documents in an attempt to influence an election is a crime.
Arrest and convict those guilty of this crime.
The independent report suggests that Dan was told to say those words, and he went along to be a "team player". BUNK I believe those were Dan's words, not Marys Mapes or the executives. I'll give him the first day defense....but the cover-up for 10 days? Who in the industry believes that he wasn't involved in every detail?
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And LIBERAL Los Angeles Times Media Reporter DAVID SHAW still tell us all that:
RATHER's work 'Shoddy, Slipshod' not LIBERAL..?
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1227809/posts
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FReeper truthwillwin is correct.....laws were broken here and someone needs to be indicted.
Pat Buchanan said it best on one of the cable talk shows......these people were "engaged in a conspiracy" to undermine a US election to advance their own political agenda.
This is a bigtime felony.
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Seems RATHER had assured CBS News President Andrew Heyward that he had not...
.."been involved in this much checking on a story since WATERGATE."
See this for yourself in today's Los Angeles Times front page Media Story not written by its longtime Media Critic DAVID SHAW titled:
How CBS' Big Story Fell Apart
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1321822/posts
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Ash heap bound.
Katie Couric to replace Dan Rather? That would be so hilarious! And so fitting, somehow...I mean, every time I think about her, I remember that she's the one who showed the inside of her colon on television. It gets all mixed up in my mind, but thinking of the inside of Katie's colon being better, somehow, than the outside of Dan's face....
Doesn't matter. I haven't actually seen CBS in years, literally. Or any program on it...
I trust that no one will post a picture of Katie's colon here without sufficient warning.
"I'm told he has shared with people that he feels a certain sorrow and guilt about being the guy who survived," said New Yorker writer Peter Boyer of Ossining, a former CBS staffer who wrote the book, "Who Killed CBS?: The Undoing of America's Number One News Network."
Resigning as an acknowledgment of one's failure to perform one's job effectively? What a quaint notion.
CBS doesn't care what you believe, just watch and buy the soap, or cars, or cBS that they're showing. They'll tell you what you should believe.
And one more thing: "They" totally agree with you that Dan was very involved. But our press, along with our government, thinks they can say what they want, when they want to, and you, the public, will buy it.
History will judge us as FOOLS if we don't get it straightened out. In the grand scheme of things, the press' job is to keep the government story straight, not to let the government (democratic party in this case) dictate the stories (read lies).
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...Without our finally nailing these Anti-U.S. Media characters to the wall,
...people like CBS News President ANDREW HEYWARD will still be out there improperly using that Media to nail our Commander-in-Chief BUSH in time of war.
Just take a look at what happened today on CBS:
CBS Nixed White House Request to Rebut KENNEDY
http://www.Newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/16/154400.shtml
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Thanks for the ping!
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