All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Foul Ball: Blogging a baseball game, it turns out, can get you kicked out of the press box. By the NCAA's logic you're providing a "live representation of the game," as a Courier-Journal sports reporter learned when he got the boot at a University of Louisville/ Oklahoma State contest. Says Courier-Journal attorney Jon Fleischaker: "Once a player hits a home run, that's a fact. It's on TV. Everybody sees it. (The NCAA) can't copyright that fact. The blog wasn't a simulcast or a recreation of the game. It was an analysis."

Hartman Goes To Beeb: Former "Evening News" Executive Producer Rome Hartman was supposed to take another job with CBS News after he was moved off the show in March. Instead he's heading over to the BBC to launch a new broadcast in America. "CBS and the other networks have very talented correspondents overseas," he tells Howard Kurtz. "But there's no way any American broadcast network can or will cover the world the way BBC does. They just don't have the capacity. It's a frustration for people at every network." Speaking of the "Evening News," Broadcasting and Cable notes that CBS is launching an "aggressive promotional campaign” this summer to pump up the show's ratings.

Reasons To Be Depressed: "More people agree that Bill O'Reilly is a better source of political information than ABC News, according to a JWT survey conducted on behalf of Adweek." There are those who hated the Soprano's finale. And we're now into our second week of this.

As we mentioned earlier today, Rick Kaplan is being named executive producer of the "Evening News." He replaces Rome Hartman, who is expected to stay on with CBS in another capacity. Here's some early analysis and comment:



New York Times:

Mr. Hartman, a respected veteran at CBS News, had joined the program about a year before Ms. Couric arrived, and had introduced several stylistic changes in its format. Some, like a nightly editorial by commentators outside CBS News, were not well received by many critics and some members of the staff. The most widely heard complaint has been that the newscast was sacrificing hard news reporting for more features and interviews.

CBS News:

For Kaplan, a broadcast news veteran, the job will be a homecoming of sorts. He worked at CBS for a decade early in his career, including a period as an associate producer for the CBS Evening News…

Associated Press:

Couric took over from [Bob] Schieffer shortly after Labor Day last year and came in with a mandate to try and shake up an evening news format that differs only slightly among the three networks and hasn't changed dramatically in years. For her first two weeks, Couric led in the ratings. But she hasn't returned there since…

"The lesson of the last six months is that it's very difficult to reinvent the wheel," said Andrew Tyndall, a consultant who monitors the content of broadcast evening newscasts.

Last week, we took a camera inside the "Evening News" lineup meeting, where producers discuss what will run on that night's show and where it will run. Hartman was the central figure at the meeting, and if you want to get a sense of his style and personality, I recommend you check it out.

Six months after Katie Couric became anchor, Rome Hartman is reportedly out as executive producer of the "Evening News," to be replaced by former MSNBC and CNN President Rick Kaplan. We'll have more on this later today, so stay tuned...

Spin Class: Scott Pelley's "60 Minutes" interview with President Bush has Andrew C. McCarthy at National Review Online railing against "the dying paleo-media." In a rambling screed that incorporates many of the traditional right-wing complaints about the press, McCarthy argues that CBS falsely hyped President Bush's statement that "decisions have made things unstable" in Iraq.

What's the problem? It seems that someone at Bloomberg News put the headline "Bush Says Iraq Is Now More Unstable Than Under Saddam, CBS Says" on a story about the interview. CBS never actually made such a claim – the press release from which the story was written offered only "[h]is decisions have led to instability in Iraq, says the President." But that doesn't stop McCarthy from asserting "[t]hese breathless assertions turn out to be slippery in the signature CBS fashion" and using said assertions as a springboard to attack what he calls "the antiwar intelligentsia."

The Katie Chronicles: Back in December, the "Evening News" took some heat over Katie Couric's nine minute interview with the widow of one of the climbers who died on Mt. Hood. Now, as Peter Johnson notes, there is discussion within CBS News about whether Couric's interviews should be abandoned. Says "Evening News" Executive Producer Rome Hartman: "We're not giving up on Katie's interviews, but I did emphasize [in a meeting with staff last week] that in order to be as newsy and fresh and distinctive, that we want those interviews to be real newsmakers, that's all. We don't want to interview the same folks that everyone is doing."

Bloggers Vs. Talkers: The "Spocko" story has made it to the New York Times. A quick primer: A group of bloggers led by "Spocko" had been contacting advertisers to let them know about comments made by KSFO-AM talk radio hosts. "Spocko" was also posting the comments, which included such gems as this one about Nancy Pelosi – “We’ve got a bull’s eye painted on her big wide laughing eyes” – on his Web site...

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The new freeSpeech segment on the CBS “Evening News” has been the subject of much criticism lately, some of which we’ve addressed before. Columbine parent Brian Rohrbough’s commentary was received with much ire from viewers, for example, and Executive Producer Rome Hartman discussed his decision to air it.

We’ve also taken a look inside the process -- how do the producers choose their subjects? What is the philosophy behind the segment? Producer Marc Rosenwasser told us back in September that the intent of the segment is that over time, it will be “the most unpredictable mix of well known people and completely unknown people,” he said, adding that, “We’re anxious for it not to be the ‘usual suspects.’ We’re anxious to hear from parts of the community that are typically not heard from on network television.”

“It’s going to be a rich mix of people, well-known and less well-known and it will only reveal itself in its fullness over time,” Rosenwasser said at the time.

After two months, however, some viewers don’t feel there is enough attention being paid to those less well-known individuals.

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The escalating war of words over the decision by The New York Times (and other newspapers) to run a story detailing the government’s bank-monitoring program has gained attention in just about every national news outlet – except for the CBS “Evening News.” Last Friday, the day The Times ran its story, correspondent Bob Orr covered it. The show has not, however, weighed in on the administration’s continuing claims that disclosure of the program has harmed national security or the passionate debate over whether The Times should have run the story. At least one group has noticed the lack of coverage -- the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group.

I asked Rome Hartman, executive producer for the “Evening News,” about why the program has not covered the ensuing flap and the implication that it was downplaying the importance of the story or covering for The Times. In an e-mail, Hartman responded:

Simply, I don’t think it’s such an interesting story, and I don’t think the audience cares much for stories by the press about the press. Perhaps we should have run the president’s comments the other day about how it’s disgraceful – other than that, no regrets. If we’re covering up for The Times, it’s not working out so well. I just don’t think there’s much to the story for us. They went with their story, they’re under attack for doing so.

My two cents: I tend to agree with Hartman that, except for hyper-focused people like us at Public Eye and politically charged observers, the general audience isn’t all that interested in stories about the press. And it’s hard to argue that the “Evening News” is somehow helping to bury the story. But when a story reaches the level of chatter and political maneuvering that this one has, isn’t there some angle of interest worth running? At least up to this point, Hartman doesn’t think so, and it’s his call to make whether we agree with it or not.

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It's now been eight days since the roadside bomb attack in Baghdad that killed CBS News cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan and critically injured correspondent Kimberly Dozier. The attack also took the lives of Army Capt. James Funkhouser and an Iraqi interpreter.

Covering news involving your own people is a unique challenge for a news organization, particularly when the news is tragic.

"This is what journalism is all about," says "Evening News" anchor Bob Schieffer. "We are trained to deal with tough stories. It's always harder when it involves someone you know, but you always have to fall back on your training."

"I think the basic issue is finding the right balance between covering the incident which in essence happened to involve our people…and balancing that with the fact that there are a lot of other people who this has happened to," says CBS News Vice President Paul Friedman.

CBS' coverage, says "Evening News" Executive Producer Rome Hartman, had to reflect the fact that "this is the kind of terrible news that thousands of families have received, and this time it was our family. It's no more serious or awful or tragic than what other families have experienced, but also no less so." He adds that when people at CBS first heard the news, "our first instinct was compassionate, not journalistic."

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This morning I spoke to Rome Hartman, executive producer of the CBS "Evening News," about today's announcement that Katie Couric will become the "Evening News" anchor.

"Every 'Evening News' broadcast has reflected the personality of the anchor, and this one will too," said Hartman. "She brings a lot to the table, and the show will reflect her taste, talent, skills and personality."

Hartman said he did not know for sure until this morning that Couric had decided to take the job, and characterized her decision as one "we were hoping fervently she would make."

Traditionally, CBS News anchors have come from within CBS News. I asked Hartman, who has worked at CBS News since 1983, the significance of Couric coming from outside the system.

"She comes from a different network and a different culture, but we're all television journalists," he said. "It's not like she's coming from a different profession. In a lot of ways, it will help to have a fresh perspective. And it's not just anybody – we're talking about Katie Couric, and she's coming from NBC, which is a fabulous institution."

As for how the newsroom was reacting to the news, Hartman said "people are very excited."

"Bob [Schieffer] came into the job fully intending for it to be a temporary assignment," said Hartman. "He's been fabulous, and put us on very solid footing. Now we know more about the future."

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Steve Hartman is probably best known for his offbeat stories, and it turns out he has some even more offbeat anecdotes about how they came about. (One of which suggests that he has some sort of subconcious affinity for Motley County, Texas.) Read on to find out other notable tidbits, like who shines Morley Safer's shoes and why Hartman never became a meteorologist -- but he's pretty sure Bill Maher would make a good one.

So, what do you do for a living?

I tell stories. Right now my job is to tell stories our viewers have specifically asked to see. We call the segment "Assignment America." Every Friday night on the CBS "Evening News" we present a list of three feature stories we're considering for the next Friday night’s broadcast. We then invite people to visit our Web site and vote for the story that sounds most interesting to them. I tell the story that gets the most votes. I also shine Morley Safer’s shoes.

What is not being covered enough at CBS News?

If you were to take all the commercials out of the "Evening News" (which my father suggests we do every time I see him) you’re left with just 22 minutes of content. What’s not being covered enough at CBS News? Just about everything! That said, I think we do a pretty good job of picking the most important stories of the day. A few of my colleagues have suggested openly that my features don’t belong on a “hard news” broadcast like the "Evening News." They’d like to see that time go to something “more important.” But others say features are important to balance out all the doom and gloom. For the sake of my mortgage payments, I tend to agree with the latter.

What’s the strangest thing that has ever happened to you on the job?

I used to do a segment called “Everybody Has a Story.” Every other week we’d throw a dart at a map of America, go wherever the dart hit, and then profile somebody picked randomly from the phone book. Well, one time the dart hit Motley County, Texas. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Then two years later the dart hit the same place! That was weird enough. But when I stuck my finger in the phonebook the second time -- I got the NEIGHBOR of the guy I picked the first time! 280 million people in America and I end up with two guys who share a hedge! Seeing Andy Rooney in the elevator still feels a little strange too.

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Still interested in Jason McElwain’s story? It looks like it’s not over yet. Got some questions about “Assignment America”? Wondering why Steve Hartman hasn't been throwing darts at a map these days? Well, today’s your last chance to ask him. Check out his bio for some more information on his background and submit your questions via e-mail or post them in comments.

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