All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Amid the whirlwind of change at CBS News today, I spoke with both outgoing president Andrew Heyward and newly announced president Sean McManus. (Just because I’m part of Public Eye doesn’t mean I have a special place in the hearts of CBS’ PR department.)



I suspect it will be nearly impossible to read or hear a story, today or in the coming days, about this change without a line about the “60 Minutes Wednesday” National Guard story and its impact on Heyward’s departure. But he doesn’t see it that way, telling me that, “on a scale of 100, last year’s event … had zero to do with this.” Heyward sees a much bigger picture, saying “this needs to be seen against the broader backdrop of almost 10 years in this job, which is a really long time, in a very rewarding and challenging assignment. In fact, I think this institution has moved well beyond the events of last year, much further than the people who cover us have. … One of the things that I feel good about is leading us past that and that is not a factor here, this needs to be seen in a broader context.”



McManus also believes the story is in the past and says “the time is right for CBS News to move beyond the issues it has been dealing with over the past year.” He acknowledges it is now part of CBS News and is “never going to totally go away.” But he sees the opportunity for a “new chapter” at the news division. And, in case anyone wonders about his approach, McManus vows that CBS News will not be “intimidated or demoralized” by the past.

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I just interviewed Andrew Heyward and then Sean McManus. The full post will be up soon. Well, pretty soon.

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We’ve been asked many times over the course of the past weeks why we’ve not covered the speculation and rumors about the future of CBS News. The answer, simply, is that we’re not here to engage in idle chat about who’s in or who’s out, who’s up or who’s down. We leave that to the professionals at Page Six.



But these are momentous times for the news division and since there are now real changes taking place that will have real impact on its products, we would be remiss to ignore it. That seems to be in line with our basic mission to help bring more transparency to CBS News. In the days and weeks to come, much will be written and many questions asked. We’ll be covering that discussion and some of those developments as they happen. First, I wanted to provide a snapshot of the initial reaction at the news division and some of the questions being asked.

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Big changes afoot at CBS News with the announcement today that President Andrew Heyward will leave his position when his contract is up at the end of the year. In conjunction, CBS announced that CBS Sports President Sean McManus will replace Heyward at the news division while retaining his position within the sports division.



As of this morning, there’s plenty of buzz surrounding these announcements and Public Eye will be here to help sort it all out so stay tuned.



I want to take this opportunity to note the important role Heyward has played in the creation of Public Eye. Not every news division president welcomes the kind of introspection and questioning PE is here to facilitate, but Heyward possessed the foresight and guts to not only cooperate with us, but support our mission. For that, he deserves credit and our thanks.



Much more to come …

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Last month’s gathering of MSM executives and bloggers at the Museum of Television and Radio continues to spur discussion about the intersection of the two. Sometime in the days after the event one participant, Press Think’s Jay Rosen, was still pondering something CBS News President Andrew Heyward had said during the discussion.



Heyward forwarded the idea that big media retains an “illusion of omniscience,” one that ought to be dropped. Here’s how Rosen recalls the point:

“Heyward actually spoke against it, which was a first for me in listening to national news executives. He said “omniscence” was outdated; CBS would be better off without it. He talked about news that was more truthful because it was less certain, less definitive, less simple.”

So when the two men ran into one another a week later, Rosen asked Heyward whether he might be willing to expound on that comment in writing. Below is Heyward’s response, followed by excerpts of comments from Rosen, including responses he solicited from other bloggers and analysts.



Heyward:

Even though my hastily scribbled notes no longer exist, I was able to track down the three points you asked about from our earlier discussion at the Museum -- ironically, they were on your blog. You grabbed a few sentences from Terry Heaton citing them. The context was a discussion of ways mainstream broadcast news has to change in response not just to bloggers but to consumers newly empowered to react, interact, and even report.



1) We have to abandon any claim to omniscience. Walter Cronkite used to end his broadcast with "That's the way it is." Dan Rather pulled that back, appropriately, to "That's part of our world tonight." The digital journalist, if he or she were being honest, would say something like "That's some of what we did our best to find out today." This means not just recognizing that on most matters there are multiple points of view out there as opposed to a single, discoverable "truth," but also -- and this is just as important -- acknowledging that the world is a complicated place, and the stories and issues we cover are not always reducible to simple, television-friendly explanations. However, that cannot be an excuse for us to shrug our shoulders and abdicate our core responsibility to strive for the highest standards of accuracy, fairness, and thoroughness. We broadcast to a large and diverse audience, much of which does see mainstream news as "definitive" whether we acknowledge its limitations or not. And we cannot shy away from following the FACTS -- and yes, there is such a thing as a fact -- where they take us.

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Some blogs come from a guy in pajamas working on do-it-yourself software in his attic. Not this one. It took a village, it was a team effort, we are the world and all that.



Gargantuan thanks go Steve Pearson, Chad Chamberlain, James Morris and Michael Rosellini who built this thing from scratch. If you want to feel dumb, sit around a table with these characters for awhile. They have put incredible time and brainpower into this project.



Mike Sims and I have been taking turns medevacing each other since the end of the 20th century and he choppered in for this one in a big way.

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