New Standards For CBS News
(CBS)
One change from the previous version: A rule forbidding contributions to political campaigns. Such contributions had not been prohibited before.
"We want our reporters to be absolutely pure when they interview candidates of either side or issues that relate to either side," said Mason. "Today, with the instant reporting of political contributions, it has become obvious who gives and to whom, and this we felt would compromise the people who were doing reporting involved with political issues."
I asked Mason why a reporter can't be balanced and still contribute to a campaign. Isn't there a concern that the organization is impinging on the right to free speech of its employees?
"That's fair to argue, and in fact it has been argued here," said Mason. "Our feeling is if you indicate in any way support for one party or another, your reporting will be challenged. Now, somebody took it a step further and said that if you looked at the whole organization there would be a certain number of people for Republicans, a certain number for Democrats, and they kind of cancel each other out. But the problem is each story is looked at as an individual story, and not everybody watches everything on CBS News, so we came to this conclusion."
Another new rule is that prior approval from Mason or CBS News President Sean McManus is required for any outside writing, speeches or blogs.
"There has always been outside approval required for outside speeches, outside writing – books, magazines, op-eds," said Mason. "And that's so that, again, your opinions don't reflect badly on CBS, or in any way show bias towards one side or the other. On blogs, that's a whole new thing. We can't have people having personal blogs venting their opinions. So we ask when people have a blog that they tell me about it, and the people who have told me about it mainly have blogs that deal with running, or with gardening, or something totally apart from CBS or political issues. And that's fine."
Why, I asked, aren't the standards posted on the Internet for public consumption?
"We've never made the standards public," said Mason. "This is a private, internal business. This is our internal way of working and it stays internal."
I also asked Mason what, in her opinion, was the most significant change in the new standards. She argued there really weren't any big changes.
"What's so gratifying about this is how little we did, and that the basic assumptions remain," said Mason. "We want CBS News to be fair and accurate, and we have laid out a roadmap to be fair and accurate. What we've done is updated to present day circumstances…to make it pertinent to people working today."
Like most large institutions, CBS is risk-averse, which is fine, but is also apt to produce a lot of 'one the one hand, on the other hand' blogging, which is not exactly the point.
Scott Atkinson
News Director
WWNY TV
Watertown NY
IN CASE SOME OF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS...
" DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WILL HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU".
KEEPING A HANDOUT FROM ALL THE GREEDIES, IS A GOOD SIGN
WIDOW LADY
CBS's standards are the "limbo" standards. In other words, "how low can you go?"
An example is Dennis Hastert's large purchase of open land in Illinois, then pushing through a highway bill that increased the value of the land by 500%, before selling it for a huge profit.
Remember when the media brought down Democratic Speaker Jim Wright for incorrectly receiving money from a book sale that should have been put in trust until he left office. Think the amount was $140,000 or something like that.
Hastert and his buddies in a land trust have made something like $15,000,000 on his corrupt land deal, but Katie or her staff of crack reporters doesn't seem interested in that story??
CBS like every other mainstream media outlet is a wing of the US industrial military complex and cannot be trusted as a source of news. Journalism is already dead because a good journalist is never afraid to report facts - even those critical of the status quo. Hence a journalist is 'liberal'. Hence not going to report all the facts because management won't allow 'liberal' journalism. Case closed.
George Will. Conservative, not somebody I agree with, somebody who's partisan, but he's honest and fair.
E.J. Dionne. Liberal, partisan, but fair.
And to the CBS standards, you're doing what every other corporation in the world is doing and what every journalist complains about every politician doing. Shrinking from the loud, obnoxious criticism of the few at the expense of your standing with the masses.
Show a little backbone and allow people to be who they are and let their reporting be judged by honest actors. I could care less if Katie Couric maxed out to the RNC every year, as long as she gave both sides a fair shake and reported the truth.
TB.