All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Upon arriving at the office today, this writer came upon a blog post about “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent Rita Braver’s conversation with Lynne Cheney. The post began:

CBS News correspondent Rita Braver's brown-nose interview with Lynne Cheney on Sunday was reason number 1,342 why I am cynical toward and very distrustful of the mainstream corporate media.

The author of the post, Micheal Petrelis, took issue with two main points:

The lighter tone of the interview.

The fact that Rita Braver’s husband is the lawyer who represents Lynne Cheney with publishers. It's important to note that Braver disclosed this herself during the interview.

I began a conversation with Braver about this issue early today, before finding out the conversation had widened to a couple of letters on Jim Romenesko’s MediaNews – the go-to site for a daily climate check of MediaLand. (It’s so “go-to,” we direct you to go to it in the list to the right ----->.)

There I found a letter from David Fluhrer, a self-described "public relations consultant with a healthy respect for journalism," raising the same points as Petrelis -- where he called the interview "fawning." And another from Lee Rood at the Des Moines Register.

In order to get a sense of the decision-making process, I got in touch with Rand Morrison, the Executive Producer of “CBS Sunday Morning” and shared with him the concerns out there in the blogosphere.

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In light of Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS/Viacom, I'm going to coin a Rather-esque saying: Writing about this story while working for CBS is tougher than playing Operation while traveling down a bumpy Lubbock road.

But here goes anyway.

By now we've all read and/or heard that former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS, as revealed in yesterday's New York Times:

Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.”

According to the lawsuit, Rather's complaints revolve not only around the investigation but also the fallout surrounding the infamous "60 Minutes" story which looked into President Bush's national guard duty (uncreatively nicknamed "Memogate") – including his not having been assigned to cover Hurricane Katrina despite being "the most experienced reporter in the United States in covering hurricanes" and a disagreement over the definition of "full-time."

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In light of Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS/Viacom, I'm going to coin a Rather-esque saying: Writing about the story while working for CBS is tougher than playing Operation while traveling down a bumpy Lubbock road.

But here goes anyway.

By now we've all read and/or heard that former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS, as revealed in yesterday's New York Times:Dan Rather, whose career at CBS News ground to an inglorious end 15 months ago over his role in an unsubstantiated report questioning President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service, filed a $70 million lawsuit this afternoon against the network, its corporate parent and three of his former superiors.
Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.”According to the lawsuit, Rather's complaints revolve not only around the investigation but also the fallout surrounding the infamous "60 Minutes" story which looked into President Bush's national guard duty (uncreatively nicknamed "Memogate") – including his not having been assigned to cover Hurricane Katrina despite being "the most experienced reporter in the United States in covering hurricanes" and a disagreement over the definition of "full-time."

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CBS White House correspondent Jim Axelrod – you might remember him as the fellow labeled "defeatist" by then-White House press secretary Tony Snow – was involved in another tense exchange last week, this time with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

According to the Examiner article "Pelosi, Reid Take On Reporter":

CBS White House reporter Jim Axelrod mentioned to Pelosi that, come November 2008, the number of American troops in Iraq likely will be the same as in November 2006, when Democrats were swept into power. Then, he asked, “How do you view your stewardship of Congress as anything other than a failure to make the president change course?”

Pelosi was instantly taken aback. “What a lovely objective question on the part of the press!” she remarked.

And the blog world exploded with headlines like "Pelosi Shocked by CBS's 'Failure' Hardball from the Left ..." and "Nancy Pelosi Accuses Reporter of Bias"

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Yesterday in this space we discussed a new article that raised the economic problems of covering Iraq … and how it’s a difficult business proposition.

But enough from the bean counters, what about the journalism? In the piece, TV news analyst Andrew Tyndall was quoted:

"We’re in a period of prolonged news doldrums," says Andrew Tyndall, who analyzes newscasts in the online "Tyndall Report." "Iraq is no longer a headline news story. There are no new things happening there; it’s just more of the same. That would be a true thing to say even if the security conditions were better. It’s stuck, militarily and diplomatically."

Later on in the piece, CBS Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan took issue with his characterization, saying:

"You don’t abandon the American soldiers who are on the streets of this country because people are tired of hearing about it," says Logan. "You don’t abandon the Iraqi people. You don’t abandon people like that because back home people are tired of hearing about the war. Our job is to find a way through that."

I was interested to hear what Logan meant by “find a way,” so I contacted her in Iraq yesterday and asked her to expand on that idea.

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“Are FEMA Trailers Making Residents Sick?” was the CBS exclusive two months ago.

Fast forward to last night’s story on the “Evening News” “House Probes FEMA Cover-up”

And this morning’s Washington Post displayed the headline: “FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers .”

In a story that feels more than a little like “Erin Brockovich,” CBS’ investigative team followed some medical anecdotes circulating around the FEMA trailer camps, consulted a number of experts and looked into potential health concerns to get to the bottom of a troubling story.

As reported in that first story on May 16:

Today the government says 86,000 families are still living in those white FEMA travel trailers across the Gulf — more and more waking up with a host of health problems — tied, medical experts believe, to the place they still call home.

When Hurricane Katrina tore apart homes here in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, Angela Orcutt and her young son Nicky found shelter in a FEMA trailer meant for weekend trips.

That trip has now lasted 21 months — something these trailers were not built for. Time that has turned them into human Petri dishes — unregulated experiments on the health of thousands still stuck inside.

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We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the biggest story of the day in MediaLand: Joe Hagan's New York Magazine piece on Katie Couric and the "Evening News." The piece includes some choice quotes from the "Evening News" anchor, including this one, about whether she ever questions her decision to come to CBS News: “I mean, of course. I’m human. I’m not going around, ‘Dee-da dee-da dee.' I have days when I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’ But for some weird reason, they don’t happen that often.” Go here to check it out.

Reader Jim J. writes in to take issue with an apparent contradiction during this morning's "Early Show":

"I was watching the Early Show this morning…The headline on the screen reads 'Libby Pardon', while at the VERY SAME TIME, Bill Plante's words are 'Libby has not been pardoned, he is still a convicted felon.' So which is it?"

Good catch, Jim J. The answer to your question is that Libby has not actually been pardoned – and that the person responsible for putting "Libby Pardon" onscreen made a mistake. From the president's statement on the matter:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

To commute a sentence is to make it less severe; a pardon, as Adam Liptak writes, "excuses or forgives the offense itself." In this case, the conviction stands, as well as the probation and fine – but the prison term that came with it has been erased.

Reader Jim J. writes in to take issue with an apparent contradiction during this morning's "Early Show":

"I was watching the Early Show this morning…The headline on the screen reads 'Libby Pardon', while at the VERY SAME TIME, Bill Plante's words are 'Libby has not been pardoned, he is still a convicted felon.' So which is it?"

Good catch, Jim J. The answer to your question is that Libby has not actually been pardoned – and that the person responsible for putting "Libby Pardon" onscreen made a mistake. From the president's statement on the matter:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

To commute a sentence is to make it less severe; a pardon, as Adam Liptak writes, "excuses or forgives the offense itself." In this case, the conviction stands, as well as the probation and fine – but the prison term that came with it has been erased.

Here at Public Eye, we've gotten more than 400 emails complaining about Jeff Greenfield's Friday piece on the film "Sicko." Why so many? Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Common Dreams, and Reclaim The Media have all posted FAIR's "Action Alert" complaining about the piece.

The action alert ends by telling readers to "Tell CBS Evening News to correct Jeff Greenfield's assertions about public opinion and single-payer health coverage. You could also point out that Dennis Kucinich—a proponent of such a system—is in fact a presidential candidate." It includes our email address as well as that of the "Evening News."

Almost immediately after the FAIR alert was posted, I contacted Greenfield for his thoughts. He quickly responded to FAIR's critique. I posted the critique and Greenfield's response yesterday at 5:00 PM with hopes that it would start the kind of dialogue in our comments section that Public Eye was created to foster.

The results have been disappointing. The Greenfield post has elicted just seven comments thus far, a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of complaints we've gotten about this issue in our now bulging inbox. Most of the e-mailers have clearly not seen or considered Greenfield's comments, opting instead to simply parrot the line of the FAIR piece. Some just pasted the FAIR piece into the body of their email.

I'm not taking sides here. I am, however, pointing out that an awful lot of people seem more interested in registering their outrage when directed to do so than in engaging in a discussion of the issues at hand.

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