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On Friday, CBSNews.com ran a story by London-based producer Tucker Reals suggesting that the London bomb plot might have been foretold on the Web.

"Hours before London explosives technicians dismantled a large car bomb in the heart of the British capital's tourist-rich theater district," the story said, "a message appeared on one of the most widely used jihadist Internet forums, saying: 'Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed.'"

I asked Reals how CBS found the posting, which was in the "al Hesbah" chat room.

"We have a team who very closely monitors jihadi web forums for us," he said, noting that news networks like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are also monitored. "[The team] sends out messages daily, such as, 'here's video of a hummer being blown up in Iraq, posted on this forum.' The message they sent out Friday morning caught my eye."

Some media organizations, including CNN, have questioned the CBSNews.com report. On Friday, correspondent Octavia Nasr said "we cannot find this claim anywhere. It is not on the Islamic website…Now [Hesbah] is a major, major website. So we entered that website. There is nothing to that effect. Now some times people post things that the administrator goes back and takes out. So there is that chance that something like this happened. But that, by itself, is indication that the posting was not credible."

As it turned out, the posting was removed, according to the CBS journalist – a member of the team mentioned above – who first found it. (This did not happen until Sunday, however.) Because his job entails infiltrating jihadi Web sites for a Western news organization – an occupation that would not endear him to some of the more militant members of those forums – I am not using the journalist's name here.

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It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News Vice President and London Bureau Chief Jennifer Siebens. You can read excerpts, and listen to the full interview, below.

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Click here to listen to the interview.

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Brian Montopoli: What are your strategies for getting people interested in news that is, literally, foreign to them?

Jennifer Siebens: Well, you know, at CBS it isn't a hard sell, because the folks who run the shows – the executive producers and their staff – have an inherent curiosity about it. But I have found that there is a real weariness with the war in Iraq. And why not? It's just so relentlessly depressing, and it's gone on three years longer than it was meant to. And is likely to continue further. So how we interest them in the grind of the war becomes a challenge, particularly given the difficulties and the very real dangers of covering that story.

But I think that the basic principle holds: You try to find a strand, a thread, something that is illustrative of the current reality. And generally those stories are told by finding really interesting people whose lives are shaped by the events around them. A character with whom the viewer can identify. Other times it's just goofy pictures or scary pictures, in the case of a market bombing or so forth.

Brian Montopoli: You're responsible "for CBS News' editorial and logistical coverage of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia." What, exactly, does that entail, and what exactly does that mean?

Jennifer Siebens: (laughing) Sorry if I'm laughing. It is kind of daunting. I have a second title where I just call myself "Vice President of the World." It's silly. From London, we do keep an eye, 24 hours, on everything this side of Asia. Our footprint of responsibility, if you will, goes as far as New Delhi, India, and then you keep going and our Tokyo bureau takes over from there. And we obviously share duties because we're not an endless army.

What it means is that every day, you are checking in with – we have offices in a lot of places. We have an office in Jo'berg, we have one in Tel Aviv, we have people in Cairo, Baghdad, Amman. And so I do try to make a point of talking to all of those offices by email – of course I'm addicted – or telephonically. To monitor the Arab world we watch two or three Arab networks, and we also have translators who come in around the clock, and are not only monitoring the Arab networks, but they're also monitoring all the Web sites, and there's a lot of chatter there.

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For four years, the Iraq war has been the dominant foreign story in the US media. But has the war meant that other foreign stories have not gotten the coverage they should? I put the question to Jennifer Siebens, CBS News vice president and London bureau chief, who started with the network in 1976.

"It has," said Siebens. "It's extremely difficult because the cost of covering Iraq, which was supposed to be a short term cost, has become long term. We work in a world of finite resources – every corporation in America does. And to the extent that the war becomes the single focus, it makes it harder to cover other topics."

"I want to put in a note of caution, because on any big foreign story, where there is firepower, there is going to be coverage," she added. "It's part of formula that other things will get shoved aside." But this war in particular has eaten up resources, she said, because it's so dangerous for journalists.

"It's not just that it's a war, but that it's a war that is extremely hazardous to the health of the journalists who cover it," Siebens said. "This company has suffered terrifically, with the loss of a crew. The need to protect our people creates this whole other cost center I've never seen."

I asked Siebens what stories have gotten less coverage than they might otherwise have.

"Within the confines of the Middle East, a lot of interesting stuff is going on," she said. "The Arab world is not a monolithic place…We did swarm into Lebanon, but there was a war. Anything short of that, to try to get below the surface of other Arab countries, it's just not happening."

Still, she said, "I'm confident that if a really big story breaks, we're going to be on it."

The Rome puns will keep coming until Friday, people. This is, of course, another friendly reminder to send in your questions for “60 Minutes” Producer Rome Hartman, as part of our weekly “10 Plus 1” feature – a CBS News staffer answers 10 of our questions and one submitted by a reader. Not exactly equal opportunity, but we're taking it one day at a time around here. Check out last week's Q&A with Los Angeles Bureau Chief Jennifer Siebens. Ever found yourself soaked by geyser water while standing in a throng of nomads in the Sahara? She has.

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