All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Today’s the day. “I Am America (And So Can You!)” – the first book by Stephen Colbert’s alter ego – is out today in bookstores across America. (What? You never read “Wigfield?” Get thee to a Border’s!) A Washington Post slightly-humorless review came out today – why even mention verifying his truthiness? -- and it’s lukewarm on the book:

[N]one of "I Am America" rings as uncomfortably true as Colbert's blistering speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner, which is reprinted as an appendix here. While the humor in the book at times feels blunted and overly general, at the dinner he had a specific target: President Bush sitting just a few feet away from him and the journalists and politicians in the tables before him…Reading it now, you also can get a sense of the political convictions behind the comedian, the convictions that sharpened his jokes and that emboldened him to make them at such a historically cozy event. Funny as "I Am America" is, it lacks that critical force.

There are myriad reasons why Stephen Colbert is fascinating: his razor-sharp satire; his deadpan delivery; his speed-of-light quick wit.

But I’ve got my own reason for being fascinated by Colbert: He’s an enigma.

That’s right. The guy who’s seemingly ubiquitous from magazine covers to ice cream containers to presenting Emmy Awards?

An enigma.

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Want to know the future of Internet news? (The fact that you’re reading Public Eye leads me to think you might have considered it.)

Predications come cheap, but here’s a new one: You know now a lot of web browsers – or sites, even, like Google Maps – have a function where you can zoom in or zoom out, according to a sliding scale? Imagine being able to do that for the “weight” of your news content.

Michael Wolff has a fascinating read in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, where he discusses how, historically, each new medium has created its own version of news. – and that we’re still waiting for how the Internet is going to “do” news. He talks about how software types and media people have regular conference calls to try to wrap their heads around the future of online news.

Yet I understand that these incredibly unresponsive people may well possess untapped magic that, if they wanted to, could make for all sorts of wondrous tricks which might save the news.

"What about a sliding bar?" Mike Wu, a software engineer, offers just a little grudgingly. "Like from hard to soft news. So you can set it where you want to?"

"Really? From serious broadsheet to scandalous tabloid?" I wonder if this plasticity is miraculous or ludicrous. "From Ben Bernanke to Paris Hilton. And could this work, from unreconstructed crypto-Fascist religious right to loony absolutist left?"

"If we get the algorithm right."

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There’s been a slight uptick in discussion regarding the validity and need for the “Fairness Doctrine” lately, spurred on by a study proving/reiterating the obvious fact that conservative talkers make up the majority of syndicated radio programming. (Allow me to hit rewind: The “Fairness Doctrine” was a broadcasting rule requiring that equal time be given to differing political views, and was repealed in the ‘80s.)

The only thing wrong with this debate? There really wasn’t one. An amusing facet of the quote-unquote debate has been the fact that very few people were actually advocating for the reinstatement of the rule; many pushing in that direction were accused of misreading the report. Even the thinktank responsible for the study that pointed out the imbalance said – and I quote – “Forget the Fairness Doctrine.”

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If you're a regular Public Eye reader, you've followed this week's dustup over Jeff Greenfield's "Evening News" piece on Michael Moore's new film "Sicko."

A quick recap: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) posted an "Action Alert" complaining that the piece was flawed. Because the "Action Alert" told readers to write in to CBS and request a correction they felt warranted, we received more than 500 emails criticizing the piece.

Not long after the first such email arrived, we contacted Greenfield and asked him to respond to FAIR's critique. He did so. FAIR did not acknowledge his response until late yesterday, however, and the vast majority of the emails that have come in have simply followed FAIR's script and not engaged the response in any meaningful way.

Now the latest: Today, an "Evening News" employee has been contacting many of those who wrote to us to make sure they were aware of Greenfield's response. (He decided against replying to those who simply copy/pasted the FAIR piece or loaded their email with expletives -- and, to be honest, I'm sure a few more worthwhile messages have fallen through the cracks.)

So to review: Public Eye immediately acknowledged the complaints and got the correspondent to respond to them. An "Evening News" employee then took the trouble to make sure that many of those who had not seen the response were able to see it. That's pretty decent engagement with the viewer, isn't it? News organizations have not, historically, gone to such lengths to address issues like this; CBS News' competitors still, for the most part, do not.

But this has apparently not been enough. I just received an email from someone who heard from the "Evening News" employee but felt that CBS News' efforts to engage her were insincere. She offered a list of questions that she expected CBS to address on an individual basis and harshly criticized CBS News for not doing so.

The relentless beat of media criticism over the past few decades, combined with the rise of niche media outlets, many of them ideological, has conditioned news consumers to expect that they get exactly the news as they believe it should be. Or else. Some, like the e-mailer above, actually seem to believe that news organizations should spend their time and money offering detailed responses to every single person who writes in as part of an astroturfing campaign.

In an era when news budgets are shrinking and overseas bureaus are being closed down, that doesn't strike me as the best use of resources.

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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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Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, or FAIR, today posted a critique of CBS News chief political correspondent Jeff Greenfield's "Evening News" piece on Michael Moore's film "Sicko." You can watch the piece by clicking on the video box.

In the piece, Greenfield asserts that "no one, Democrat or Republican, has come close to advocating the kind of government-run national health system Michael Moore proposes." Writes FAIR: "This is incorrect; Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio), a presidential contender, supports the very same approach, as do dozens of congressmembers who have co-sponsored H.R. 676, a bill that would provide single-payer coverage in the United States."

The piece also includes a quote from Paul Ginsburg of the Center for Studying Health System Change, who says "[w]e're much less willing to have government make decisions for people than is the case in Canada and Europe." FAIR argues that "[t]hat assessment is contradicted by recent polling." It cites two recent polls to back up its argument.

I asked Greenfield to respond to the FAIR piece, which has generated more than 70 emails to Public Eye in just the past hour. He did so over email. His response in full:

FAIR's critique is not. The organization is comparing apples and oranges; actually, apples and bowling balls is more like it.

Michael Moore is very clear about what he is proposing: it is not simply a "single payer" system. What Moore advocates is a government-run system in which the doctors work for the government, as they do in Britain, Canada, and elsewhere. He devotes part of "Sicko" to an interview with a British doctor, who lives in a fine home and drives a nice car, to make his point that state-employed doctors need not face privation. Later in the film, he answers the charge of "socialized medicine" by noting that we already have "socialized" police officer, firefighters, and teachers: all of whom are public employees.

Unless I am very much mistaken, this is very different from the "single payer" system that Rep. Kucinich advocates; nor is it supported by the members of congress who back a "single payer" system. (Medicare, for example, is a government-paid system; but recipients go to the same doctors the rest of us do).

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This week's installment of "From The Vault" features Walter Cronkite's visit to the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle. Unfortunately, there is some audio interference in the second half of the recording, but on the plus side, a talking, smoking robot makes an appearance around the 14:20 mark. Click on the video box to watch. And if that's not enough Cronkite for you, be sure to check out tonight's primetime special.

Last Sunday, "60 Minutes" ran a piece "On How France Is Becoming The Model For Nuclear Energy Generation."

Media watchdog group FAIR has objected to the piece on the grounds that it amounted to nuclear-power boosterism. The thrust of the objection was that "60 Minutes" did not provide a balanced argument – that "the program spoke only to nuclear power supporters (in France and elsewhere), thereby allowing their rhetoric to go unchallenged."

I asked "60 Minutes" Producer Frank Devine, who produced the piece, to respond to FAIR's complaint.

"We were not debating nuclear power in this piece," said Devine. "This was a piece on the French approach. It was not to look at nuclear power, pro or con. God knows we're aware of the shortcomings in nuclear power. [Correspondent] Steve Kroft has done two pieces from inside Chernobyl. I worked with him on a piece on security problems at U.S. power plants after Sept. 11."

"You really have to look at '60' over the course of 30 whatever years it is," he continued. "We've covered nuclear power from all sides. You have to take this in context."

Devine said the piece wasn't initially envisioned as one focused on nuclear power. "We set out to do a piece, years ago, on how the French approach differs from ours," he said. It developed into a piece on how French are influencing the U.S. government."

As to the argument that CBS News is pushing nuclear power, Devine said "60 Minutes" wasn't pushing anything – just letting "the deputy secretary of energy have his say and asking 'how has the U.S. been influenced by the French nuclear program?'"

Last Sunday, "60 Minutes" ran a piece "On How France Is Becoming The Model For Nuclear Energy Generation."

Media watchdog group FAIR has objected to the piece on the grounds that it amounted to nuclear-power boosterism. The thrust of the objection was that "60 Minutes" did not provide a balanced argument – that "the program spoke only to nuclear power supporters (in France and elsewhere), thereby allowing their rhetoric to go unchallenged."

I asked "60 Minutes" Producer Frank Devine, who produced the piece, to respond to FAIR's complaint.

"We were not debating nuclear power in this piece," said Devine. "This was a piece on the French approach. It was not to look at nuclear power, pro or con. God knows we're aware of the shortcomings in nuclear power. [Correspondent] Steve [Kroft] has done two pieces from inside Chernobyl. I worked with him on a piece on security problems at U.S. power plants after Sept. 11."

"You really have to look at '60' over the course of 30 whatever years it is," he continued. "We've covered nuclear power from all sides. You have to take this in context."

Devine said the piece wasn't initially envisioned as one focused on nuclear power. "We set out to do a piece, years ago, on how the French approach differs from ours," he said. "It developed into a piece on how the French are influencing the U.S. government."

As to the argument that CBS News is pushing nuclear power, Devine said "60 Minutes" wasn't pushing anything – just letting "the deputy secretary of energy have his say and asking 'how has the U.S. been influenced by the French nuclear program?'"

If you're even a casual baseball fan, you're probably familiar with these words: "Any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of this game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is prohibited."

Once it became clear that New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle had been killed in yesterday's tragic airplane crash in New York, news organizations began scrambling for images of Lidle. They also scrambled for video of Lidle pitching – or would have, had they not known that it is nearly impossible to use such video without paying a significant sum to Major League Baseball.

"It is extremely frustrating to not have access to these materials," said CBSNews.com Editorial Director Dick Meyer, who remembers consistently being told as an "Evening News" producer that it is too expensive to use baseball footage in news stories.

"I think it's outrageous that Major League Baseball and other professional sports so aggressively protect their licensed material when players and people connected to baseball are in the news," he continued. "I thought it was the national pastime, not the copyright protection coalition."

Added Meyer: "I cannot see how withholding short clips of people playing baseball who are in the news is good citizenship or serves any public good other than the financial interests of some owners."

A representative from Major League Baseball did not return a call for comment.

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