LINDA MASON
Linda Mason was named Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, CBS News, in January 2005. In that role, she oversees the application of the standards and practices of CBS News and updates the CBS News Standards handbook; is in charge of the CBS News Archives, one of the largest television and audio archives in the world; and administers the Division's internship and minority recruiting programs. Mason is also responsible for two of CBS News' weekend broadcasts, SUNDAY MORNING and the CBS EVENING NEWS weekend editions, and is the CBS News representative for National Election Pool (NEP), the consortium of news organizations that conducts exit polling on election days.
Before that, she was Vice President, Public Affairs, CBS News (1992-05).
Mason has been at the center of two of the most important examinations of CBS News in recent history. She headed the internal panel that examined the mistakes of Election Night 2000 for CBS News. The result was an 87-page report cited by media critics for its in-depth and critical look at the procedures and decisions of that night. The investigation and report led to a restructuring of the CBS News Decision Desk, which Mason headed in 2004, among many other changes in CBS News election-night procedures. Mason also was the sole CBS News liaison with the independent panel that investigated a flawed September 2004 report on 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY. That panel produced a 224-page report critical of the procedures used to prepare that piece and resulted in several procedural changes at CBS News, including the elevation of Mason to a more prominent role in the oversight of all investigative and sensitive reports.
Mason has also overseen "CBS Reports," a documentary series for which she served as executive producer; "The Class of 2000," an ambitious four-year project examining America through the eyes of students graduating high school in 2000; and the CBS News/Time 100 project, a series of primetime specials, special editions of Time magazine and a Simon and Schuster book that celebrated the 100 people who most shaped the 20th century.
She helped develop "Before Your Eyes," a series of critically acclaimed primetime specials produced by CBS News which explored national issues through a time-intensive study of a single story. Mason oversaw the partnership between CBS News and the Smithsonian Institution, a project of primetime specials and "Smithsonian Minutes" broadcast during 1996, the institution's 150th anniversary. She also served as the executive in charge of "Eye to Eye," the CBS News magazine (1993-95), and the primetime specials, "60 Minutes…25 Years" (1993) and "60 Minutes at 30" (1998).
Mason has been honored with the highest awards in broadcast journalism, including three Peabody Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award from the RTNDA, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, 13 Emmy Awards and an Overseas Press Club honorable mention.
Prior to her management assignments, Mason was executive producer of CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING (1987-92) and of CBS News' weekend broadcasts (1986-92). During her tenure, she originated SUNDAY MORNING from the Soviet Union during President Ronald Reagan's first trip there, from Japan for the funeral of Emperor Hirohito and from China just prior to the uprising in Tiananmen Square.
Mason had been a senior producer for the CBS EVENING NEWS (1980-86) during the anchorships of both Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. She became the first female producer on the broadcast when she joined it as a field producer in 1971.
She was a writer/associate producer for the CBS MORNING NEWS (1968-70). Before that, Mason was a news writer at WCBS-TV, the CBS Owned station in New York. She joined CBS News in January 1966 as a radio desk assistant.
Before joining CBS News, she worked as a reporter for the Providence (R.I.) Journal.
Mason was born and grew up in Middletown, N.Y. She received a B.A. degree with honors in international relations from Brown University in 1964 and received the university's 1991 William Rogers Award, given to the person voted the outstanding Brown alumnus for the year. Mason received an M.S. degree in filmmaking from Syracuse University in 1965, where she was a university fellow. She and her husband, Cary Aminoff, have two daughters. They live in Riverdale, N.Y.