Book Questions the Validity of Coverage by Network News(Did Media Inattention Contribute to 911?)

Ex-CBS [Note: retired] reporter says saving money took priority over content, accuracy..

WASHINGTON - In late 1996, veteran CBS foreign correspondent Tom Fenton pitched his network on a plan to use Saudi connections to land an interview with Osama bin Laden.

"Our bosses saw him as an obscure Arab of no interest to our viewers," Fenton says. "More concerned with saving dollars than pursuing the story, they killed the project."

Months later, Fenton says, he sat down with an Arab journalist who had interviewed bin Laden and described his violent designs on America, but "our navel-gazing executives" left that part of the piece "on the cutting-room floor." He says CBS executives asked that all references to bin Laden be cut because the story had "too many foreign names."

In his forthcoming book Bad News, Fenton, who retired last month, uses tales like these to castigate network news for failing to adequately cover the rest of the world. It is a stinging indictment that gains force from his quarter-century of service in CBS' London bureau.

Fenton blames "corporate greed" for the decline, saying he was "beaten down by the corporate bean counters" and had "so many of my stories rejected" in the decade before the Sept. 11 attacks. CBS's London bureau, he writes, "doesn't do much reporting any more. What it does is called packaging," assembling video and facts gathered by outside organizations.

Likening the practice to Dan Rather's use of what Fenton calls "phony" memos in the discredited story on President Bush's National Guard service, Fenton says the networks "take it on trust. Don't shoot it, don't report it — just wrap it up and slap the CBS eye on it."

Rather tells Fenton that CBS News may not have made a "strong enough" case to rebuild its foreign coverage after the 2001 terror attacks, "and I include myself in that."

But the top story on the CBS Evening News last year was the Iraq war and reconstruction, according to the Tyndall Report newsletter, which found that the program provided more coverage than its rivals. CBS executives say the company has provided millions of dollars to cover the aftermath of the war in Iraq, where Rather will anchor this week. "All you have to do is look at any of our broadcasts to see the commitment we have to international news," says senior vice president Marcy McGinnis.

The book argues that media inattention contributed to America's isolation and false sense of security: "Foreign correspondents like myself came to be regarded as alarmists, waving our arms from remote places like Rwanda or Yugoslavia, trying in vain to attract attention."

Fenton still has a copy of his 1978 script that CBS would not air after his reporting in Iran convinced him Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was in trouble. But his New York producers had read more "upbeat" accounts "and did not believe" him. The shah was toppled less than three months later.

Fenton also rips "jingoistic" Fox News for sending Geraldo Rivera and "an array of intrepid, inexperienced blondes" to cover the war in Afghanistan.

Fenton seems to pine for the days when roving correspondents were Murrow-like stars. He admits the networks spent too much on Learjets and other luxuries when he arrived at CBS' three-person Rome bureau in 1970.

CBS now has 10 full-time foreign correspondents in London, Rome, Tel Aviv and Tokyo — no one, for example, in China or Russia. "You don't have to live in Moscow to be able to go cover Moscow" from a city like London, says McGinnis, adding that critics who say foreign news requires the big and "inefficient" bureaus of the 1970s and '80s "are wrong." But Fenton notes that in the first 10 months of 2004, the CBS Evening News ran four stories from China, two of them about pandas.

The book's instant headlines will probably come from 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney, who tells Fenton there is "no question" the media are liberal and takes a swipe at Rather: "I think Dan has been — I don't know why; he may not be as smart as they think — but he has been so blatantly one-sided. He uses little words that are absolute clues, giveaways to his political opinions. Like saying 'Bush,' instead of 'President Bush' or 'Mr. Bush.' A couple of years ago I heard him refer to 'Bush's cronies.' Well, Jesus, 'cronies' — oh dear!"

Longtime 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt (who says he once offered to give back one-sixth of his $6 million salary if it were spent on news but was told that wouldn't happen) has lost interest in the CBS Evening News, saying such broadcasts have become "wallpaper" in a world of 24-hour information. And Walter Cronkite says he does not regularly watch the newscast he once headed because "there's nothing there but crime and sob-sister material — tabloid stuff."

Fenton's solution is to expand the evening broadcasts to an hour. Had NBC done that, says Tom Brokaw, he would not have left the anchor chair.

The above reported story may be considered a 'bit' untimely (01.24.05) for FR; but is it really and only be mentioned in snippets on the networks and tucked away from media readership view?

Fox paid attention to this story this morning (02.11.05). Therefore, I termed it news "still running", hopefully not running into oblivion like some executives in the media would like it to see it do. The Old Media, such as CBS, was quick to hold the Bush Administration, the FBI, CIA, and FAA responsible for 9-11. Did the "navel-gazing executives" squash the stories of credible international journalists like Fenton who sought to bring attention to bin Laden's beforehand mentioned "violent designs on America"? Do the "Powers that Be" at CBS, for example, share in the responsibly of keeping America safe when credible news stories from embedded reporters are coming in from around the world that could effect the safety of the citizens of the United States or any other world power?

At the very least is CBS guilty of "selling" the American public a "false sense of security" for corporate profits as Fenton describes? We are repeatedly witness to the old liberal bumper-sticker : "No One Died, When Clinton Lied". Would withholding potentially life-saving information fall under the same intent-"neglect to inform"? I guess one can "stretch it" and say it depends on “the definition” of lie. In 1978, Fenton writes CBS refused to air his script after his embedded reporting in Iran convinced him the shah was in trouble.

In a 1988 report on Saddam Hussein's poison gas attacks in northern Iraq, Fenton says CBS asked him to delete the fact that thousands of victims were Kurdish because "no one knows who the Kurds are."

Fenton says, he sat down with an Arab journalist who had interviewed bin Laden and described his violent designs on America, but "our navel-gazing executives" left that part of the piece "on the cutting-room floor." He says CBS executives asked that all references to bin Laden be cut because the story had "too many foreign names."

Don't let the media squash Fenton's story. We need to hold the media accountable as well. Yes, “known terrorists” carried out the attacks on 911, but many in the media need to take a good long look in the mirror before pointing fingers outside their boardroom doors.

Bad News : The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All by Tom Fenton (Hardcover - March 1, 2005)

There is something oddly like the deconstruction of US intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities from 1991 to the present. With the end of the Cold War and the First Gulf War consumers of intelligence could gage the internal destruction of intelligence capabilities by the decline in available products. In the early 90's I could still ask for special search products on topics of interest to the operational community. By th mid-90's we were told to search the classified internet ourselves. Such searches turned up spotty coverage of mostly old documents and analysis. Apparently the Clinton administration firmly believed the only intelligence needed was that provided by satellites and NSA decrypting. Unfortunately both these sources were so highly classified and compartmentalized that for the bulk of consumers they were unobtainable.

By the late 90's the gap caused by drying up humint and the elimination of analytic functions within DOD (CIA also I would guess. We used to see a lot of CIA documents and they virtually vanished) was huge. Strangely it was not only the npresstitutes that let financial concerns and complacent attitudes wreak havoc on basic news and intelligence gathering and analysis functions.

"[does the media] share in the responsibly of keeping America safe when credible news stories from embedded reporters are coming in from around the world that could effect the safety of the citizens of the United States or any other world power?"

This is such a telling question. CNN was in Iraq for 12 years (I think) quietly reporting NOTHING! What was CNN's responsibility to tell the truth about what was going on there ..?? Eason Jordon claimed they were silent witnesses because he feared for the lives of his staff. A "silent witness" is not a witness.

And .. I blame the American media for the hate-America sentiments being amped up all over the world. All they ever said was, "why does the rest of the world hate us". The rest of the world didn't hate us - it was the media that hated the republicans in office .. and they hated the fact that they had not been able to affect the election of their protected class - the democrats.

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