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I hardly ever watch primetime news(?), but after my 5:30 pm showing of the local news, I left it on cBS just to see how they portray the Jefferson story. It was the 3rd story in (1st was the VA losing personal data followed by the number of hurricanes predicted for 2006). Jefferson's pic came up and the story began. As the story went on, would you believe that the first party named was Republican?? Shieffer says something along the lines that even Republicans are wondering if the FBI over-stepped their bounds. The story went to another reporter who finally...

The Christian Brothers have disputed evidence in relation to abuse at some of their institutions, including the Letterfrack Industrial School in Galway that featured in several television reports on the subject. The order's provincial told the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse that it was the order's impression that there had been what he termed very big contamination of evidence, adding that complaints against one institution were applied to others. Brother David Gibson said evidence has come to the order's attention that some complaints against the Christian Brothers may have been motivated by the offer of redress. Br Gibson said...

Leslie Cauley, the USA Today reporter who last week “broke” the news that three major U.S. telecommunications companies were assisting the National Security Agency in building a database to more easily track any communications by potential terrorists, is listed as a donor to former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt... A search found a listing for "writer and journalist" Leslie Cauley, indicating she gave $2,000 to Gephardt on June 30, 2003, when Gephardt was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And that seems not to be her only tie to Democratic politics ... Cauley's link to a Democratic campaign seems likely...

The American press needs a spine transplant in an age when reporters seem reluctant to step on toes and ask the tough questions, says former CBS news anchorman Dan Rather. Speaking as part of the Headlines and Biographies lecture series at Roy Thomson Hall Tuesday night, the veteran U.S. television journalist lamented a trend in today's news that sees reporters rely on euphemisms and tact as though they were conducting international diplomacy instead of telling people exactly what is happening in places like Washington or Ottawa. "I don't know where this urge to be so polite, this mandate not to...

George Crile III, 61, a longtime producer for CBS's "60 Minutes and "60 Minutes II" and the author of a best-selling book about a rogue Central Intelligence Agency operation in Afghanistan during the Reagan administration, died May 15 of pancreatic cancer at his home in New York City. Mr. Crile was perhaps best known as the producer, with Mike Wallace, of "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception," a controversial 1982 documentary that accused Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander of forces in Vietnam, of being involved in "a conspiracy at the highest levels of American intelligence" to deliberately distort...

(CBS News) NEW YORK President Bush and the Republican Congress show nearly record low ratings while Democrats are viewed much more favorably in their performance on the issues that matter most to Americans, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.

CBS Corp. on Thursday launched a new broadband channel called "innertube," an ad-supported outlet that will include specially created Web series and some use of material that has already run on CBS

As first-quarter earnings reports gush in to newsrooms, the media are again portraying stockholder-owned American oil companies in a sinister light while ignoring or downplaying socialist oil barons like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. While ABC’s April 26 “World News Tonight” opened with an attack on the success of petroleum companies – anchor Elizabeth Vargas noted “overflowing profits for the oil industry as Americans struggle to pay rising prices at the pump” – it also featured a story that just briefly discussed how Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is pumping some of his billions in oil money into undermining American interests. The same...

"We don't want to be the '700 Club' of gay news," says Jason Bellini, anchor of "CBS News on Logo," the MTV-owned cable network that targets gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender viewers. "The audience wants us to be credible. There are plenty of other outlets out there doing advocacy coverage." "CBS News on Logo" made its debut last summer, producing four minutes of news each day for Logo. Courtland Passant, executive producer the CBS News-produced show that runs more than 30 times each day on the network, says the content of the segment centers on gay issues. He notes that...

CBS Corp. reported lackluster first-quarter earnings as lower profits from radio ate into gains in outdoor advertising and modest growth in television. The earnings also showed the impact of CBS's split from Viacom Inc. at the beginning of the year. The company said net income totaled $226.9 million, or 30 cents a share, down 61% from $585 million, or 72 cents a share, a year earlier. But the year-earlier period also included operations now owned separately by Viacom. On a comparable basis, CBS profit was up less than 1% from year-earlier net income of $225 million, or 28 cents a...

Incoming anchor Katie Couric swung by the CBS newsroom for the first time Wednesday, but the right-wing attack squads have already gotten a head start in trying to Rather-ize her. No sooner was the "Today" co-host's ascension to the "CBS Evening News" revealed this month than conservative firebrand Brent Bozell of Media Research Center opened the bomb hatch on what he called "the perky, likable, and politically liberal Katie Couric, whose biases will only reinforce CBS' reputation as a network riddled with liberally biased reporting." "In her years on 'Today,' " Bozell added, "she's lectured Charlton Heston about the need...

"Blogging can be a useful addition" to the overall news presentation, Rather pointed out. But he added, "Accountability must play a larger role in blogging." Nagler concluded, "The only thing we have is our integrity. We are obligated to get it right."

In a searing court attack on Charlie Sheen, actress Denise Richards alleges that her estranged husband is unstable, violent, addicted to gambling and prostitutes, and visits pornographic web sites featuring young men and girls who appear underage. In a remarkable sworn declaration (a copy of which you'll find below) filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, Richards also charges that Sheen, 40, assaulted her and threatened her life during a December 30 incident at the actress's Los Angeles home. Richards claims that an enraged Sheen--who was over for a visit with the couple's two children--told her she was "fucking with...

Clear Channel, CBS, Citadel and Entercom Will Be Investigated in First Federal Payola Investigation in More Than a Quarter Century April 20, 2006 The FCC has launched formal investigations into pay-for-play practices at Clear Channel Communications, CBS Radio, Entercom Communications and Citadel Broadcasting. The story was broken by Charles Duhigg in an L.A. Times Page One story. As Duhigg notes, this is the biggest federal payola inquiry since the congressional payola hearings of 1960. The story cites two FCC officials as revealing that the FCC had requested “letters of inquiry” from the four radio powers in search of evidence that...

Though in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars -- the only way to measure prices over time -- a price of a barrel of oil will have to exceed $87 to reach a record high, the broadcast networks have been falsely trumpeting nominal oil prices as a "record high." On Wednesday night, for instance, CBS Evening News anchor Russ Mitchell inaccurately asserted that "oil prices hit another record high today, closing above 72 bucks a barrel." NBC's Brian Williams wrongly claimed that oil prices were "surging to yet another record high close. The gain on the day 82 cents per barrel. Closing price...

Katie Couric going to CBS is bad news for Christians and conservatives. She is vehemently anti-both and pro-anything on the Left — the further Left the better. According to the Media Research Center: “Since becoming co-host of NBC’s Today in April 1991, Katie Couric has often used her perch to salute her liberal heroes (including Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter) or complain about ‘right-wing conservatives.’ In her years on ‘Today,’ she’s lectured Charlton Heston about the need for gun control, championed the need for campaign finance ‘reform,’ and even touted the wonders of France’s nanny state.” On the NBC “Today”...

Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned, according to tales of ancient history. So did Katie Couric, sort of. She played badminton in New York while other news anchors were in Baghdad to cover the opening day of Saddam Hussein's trial. Couric was recently plucked from NBC's Today show to read the evening news on competing CBS. I wish her good luck; she's certainly going to need it. Couric's new job probably saves NBC the possibility of letting her go when her contract expires next month; 15 years is a longtime for a TV personality to stay in one place. CBS...

Katie Couric's move from the "Today" show to "The CBS Evening News" brings a "journalist" long known for a distinct liberal bias into the anchor chair once occupied by the revered Walter Cronkite. "Since becoming co-host of NBC's ‘Today' in April 1991, Katie Couric has often used her perch to salute her liberal heroes (including Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter) or complain about ‘right-wing conservatives,'" notes the Media Research Center, a media watchdog group. Here are some other examples of Couric's bias – and bloopers: It must have been a Freudian slip when Couric said last year that Saddam Hussein...

The Drudge Report could be seen on a computer during a CBS News conference with employees about Katie Couric replacing Bob Schieffer as the Evening News anchor.

Thinking ahead to 2008, it's clear that new CBS anchor Katie Couric has to be counted as a positive political asset for Hillary Clinton. Hillary's "Today" interviews have been almost universally sappy and sympathetic. (In a big-picture way, you might also see in solo-anchor Katie another sign, like Geena Davis's "Commander in Chief" on ABC, of an attempt by liberal media to push hard on the equal plausibility and authoritativeness of women in the top jobs.) Katie may have been speaking both herself and Hillary in the interview that aired on February 18, 2004: "Hillary Clinton's choices in just about...