Posted on 10/15/2005 5:16:12 PM PDT by wagglebee
CBS News' ethical standards are being challenged after veteran reporter Mike Wallace's appearance at an anti-gun Brady Center fund-raiser in Washington, D.C., last month.
At the event, held at the French Embassy, Wallace played a clip of his "60 Minutes" interview with then-NRA president Charlton Heston, whom he described as the "self-righteous enemy of the Jim and Sarah Brady Bunch," reported blogger and radio host Cam Edwards at NRANews.com.
Edwards said that afterwards, Wallace mocked Heston by holding up his hands, as if holding a rifle, and saying, "in my dead hands ... remember when he used to hold up ... " as the crowd tittered.
Wallace told event honoree Art Buchwald he gave a $250 contribution to the Brady Center.
The NRANews.com host sent a letter to the CBS News weblog, asking if the appearance comported with the network's policies.
CBS News Public Eye blogger Vaughn Ververs said he spoke with Linda Mason, senior vice president for standards and special projects at CBS News, who said: "We allow CBS correspondents to speak at various functions and occasionally show video. We have strict regulations that if a CBS correspondent becomes identifiable with one side of a controversial issue, they will not be allowed to cover that issue in the future."
Ververs said he asked Mason whether Wallace's appearance made him "identifiable" with the gun-control cause.
She replied, "we're looking into it to determine" that.
I just assumed that the "ethics" standards at seeBS were:
If it hurts Republicans and you can get away with it, go for it.
The jokes just write themselves.
Wallace's audience is waning. His contemporaries are discedited and dying. Soon he will be feeding the worms. I'll fire a volley to salute his passing.
No suprise in Wallace's slimy actions, but interesting that the Brady Bunch has a fund-raiser at the FRENCH embassy. That sounds illegal to me. I also thought Art Buchwald was dead.
"...held at the French Embassy." Bet the Belgians were miffed.
"Edwards said that afterwards, Wallace mocked Heston "
Let Wallace follow in the path of Rather and Blair and Duranty
I'll pour a fine single malt Scotch wiskey on his grave, after first filtering it through my kidneys.
CBS News' ethical standards...So far as I can tell, CBS doesn't publish their code of ethics; after the whole National Guard documents scandal, you might think they would be more sensitive on this front?
Ethics policies for AP and many newspapers are posted at http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=387. Many news organizations have extremely strict ethics policies, usually forbidden support of political causes, parties, and persons by any member of the editorial staff who might ever report on politics... some extend this to all editorial staff.
Just a few weeks ago Don Wycliff wrote a long editorial on The Chicago Tribune's newly revised Code of Editorial Principles, adding not only a flat ban on all political donations by all editorial staffers, but also prohibition of fund-raising efforts by editorial staff, specifically stating "The rule of thumb is that no staff members should engage in or lend their names to fund-raising efforts, even if their Tribune connection is not explicitly mentioned."
Mike should be glad he works for CBS instead :)
Mike Wallace.
Dan Rather.
Is there a difference?
His ability to write humor died a long time ago.
Nematoids can be found in manure and anywhere there's a pile.
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