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Abu Ghraib flashback:

Baltimore Sun May 5, 2004
The decisions behind the Abu Ghraib story were made largely by Jeffrey Fager, the executive producer of 60 Minutes II in consultation with Rather and CBS News president Andrew Heyward. As Fager tells it, his choice involved a tricky balance of competitive drive and civic obligations. He knew that producers Dana Roberson and Mary Mapes had an explosive story. And Fager was soon being asked to sit on the story temporarily by an Army colonel, and by other Pentagon brass. Fager agreed, for a week. On April 20, the night before the second chance to run the story on 60 Minutes II, Myers called Rather personally to ask him to hold off running the story a second time. CBS once more agreed.

Here is the deal about how the Abu Ghraid developed.

Also, for all you journalism junkies who like the "inside baseball" of how a major media outlet (in this case CBS News's 60 Minutes II) interacts with the Pentagon as it's about to break a big scandal, here's the exchange between Charlie and Mary Mapes, the producer of the 60 Minutes II story that appeared last week. Ms. Mapes's key point is her claim that 60 Minutes II sat on the story at the Pentagon's request for over 2 weeks, showing it only after they discovered the photographs were about to leak in other media outlets and after they informed the Pentagon of this fact and of their intent to air the report finally.
CHARLIE ROSE: Mary, let me just go first to you. Tell me about this story coming to 60 Minutes II because it has gotten such enormous play---how it came to you---and the relationship---because Dan [Rather] said at the end of the broadcast that there had been communication with the military, and you had been sitting on the story for whatever reason. MARY MAPES: Well, we first got word of this---I think it was in mid-February---and I work with an associate producer Dana Roberson---Dana got the first tip---and we ended up chasing it, chasing it halfway around the world and back again. Trying not just to chase the rumors of it, but---but to find out what the reality of it. And in the beginning, a lot of it was whispered accounts of pictures that existed somewhere, an investigation that was going somewhere against someone, and we were able luckily to narrow that down and get our hands on the pictures which really gave us our first real hard proof that this was real. CHARLIE ROSE: And what was the conflict within? Tell me about the journalistic decision to go with it. I mean, what did you need before you were willing to go with it? How much pressure was there not to do... to do it? What kind of communication with the Pentagon? MARY MAPES: Well, we were always going to go with the story. I mean, once we had the facts of the story and the pictures and---and what we felt the context in which we could put the story, we were ready to go with it. When we contacted the Army, and I think this was the---we delayed the story 2 weeks as part of the process and continued to gather information along the way---but---when we first spoke with the Army about providing a spokesperson, which they felt they needed to do, they didn’t have anyone on hand they said who could speak to us at a high enough level about it and ultimately they asked: Please, could you wait until we have a general here or someone who could speak knowledgeably about it. And they also raised concerns about the hostages and Fallujah and the situation in Iraq. And we thought it would be the better part of valor to defer the story for a week, which we did. And then the second week came along and we kind of got the same sort of response from the Pentagon, that they wanted more time for the hostage or Fallujah situation to play itself out, and we got from high levels in the Pentagon a request that we hold it. And then the third week, the week we ran it, we made the decision early on that we were going to run it, in part because---and we had spoken to the Pentagon about this---the pictures were beginning to leak out and the story was beginning to leak out, and it was, um, time to go.

So, that's how that played out. We shall see if Ms. Mapes recollection of how these memos have precisely came about is as sharp as how the Abu Ghraib story "broke".

It seems to me that we are going to hear 1) a lot of denials and 2) a lot of "I don't recall"s.

Here's some on Ms. Roberson from The Daily Iowan per Google.

Dana Roberson launched her career in broadcast journalism in the fax room, but the UI alumna's persistence paid off when she found herself alone in the CBS newsroom as news of the Tiananmen Square massacre broke.
She aided anchorman Dan Rather, bringing the latest news from Beijing and impressing him enough that she was promoted.
Almost 14 years later, Roberson, an associate producer for "60 Minutes II," said her career has mutated into a totally different realm; however, many things remain constant.
Roberson revisited the UI over the weekend to speak at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication's Fourth Estate Banquet and a luncheon celebrating the 10th anniversary of the UI student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.
"CBS is still homogenized," said Roberson, who is black. "But they're filtering in now because they realize the nation is more diverse."
Roberson's job entails conducting interviews, and directing and piecing stories together, and it has allowed her to cover such events as the dragging death of a black man in Jasper, Texas, the World Trade Center attacks, and the demise of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In a panel discussion with black-journalist association members, the Flint, Mich., native recalled her emotionally charged jailhouse interview with one of the men convicted of dragging James Byrd Jr., during which he repeatedly used "the N-word." Despite concerns from many of her peers, Roberson said she advocated broadcasting his harsh language without censorship in order to show viewers his true nature.
Roberson started her career by moving to New York City on a whim after graduating from the UI in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in journalism. There, she accepted a position as a secretary at an advertising firm while searching for a media job, which she landed a year later after befriending a CBS employee at her local fitness club.
Since then, she has received two American Women in Radio and Television awards, a National Association of Black Journalists honor, and an Emmy nomination.