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This post has been updated. --MTF

Criticisms of the White House press corps come fast and furious in MediaLand and Blogistan. (From accusations like they’re ‘an extension of the Clinton spin machine’ to its ‘meekness’ in covering the Bush presidency.) But very rarely do they come from the White House press corps itself.

Until this week.

ABC’s White House correspondent Martha Raddatz was the subject of a Washington Post profile by Howard Kurtz on Monday, where he detailed her ventures to Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A few paragraphs in, Raddatz tossed a bit of grenade at her friends and colleagues in the White House press corps – or, at the very least, the position of White House correspondent – when she said:

"I'd probably go crazy if I had to stay every second at the White House and not go out and be a reporter," she says by phone from Pakistan. "I don't want to be a stenographer.”

From this writer’s vantage point, Raddatz seemed to be implying that covering the White House was not quite the same as what she thought it mean to “be a reporter.”

Needless to say, this wasn’t taken well by some of those she sits with in the White House briefing room.

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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 Business Correspondent Anthony Mason. 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: You were on the floor last week during the tense period for stocks. What was the atmosphere like there?

Anthony Mason: Well, I think the real question as it started was is it just a one-day thing, or is it going to be something more serious. And obviously, it became apparent pretty quickly. The last couple of corrections the market's had were…drastic one-day downdrafts, and all of a sudden it seemed like everything was all right. And the real question this time was, is this just one bad day, or is it the beginning of quite a few bad days.

There was really worry on the floor. There was real worry that there was a significant drop, that first day, and that it didn't recover by the close. There was real trepidation. And as we now know, with good reason.

Brian Montopoli: When you're trying to characterize that for people, especially early on, do you just go by what you're feeling from the traders? Presumably, you have to look at it with a little bit of a grain of salt, because I assume panic is not uncommon on the trading floor.

Anthony Mason: I tend to go to the guys who have been there the longest, who have seen the most of these. Because they're the ones who don't use words like "panic" very easily. Because it's very easy to look at a 250 point drop or a 300 point drop and go, "oh, wow." Although these days, percentage-wise, that's not nearly as big as it was even five years ago.

But I tend to go to them first and say, "How bad is it?" It looks bad, but what's it based on? And when somebody like Art Cashin at UBS, whose been on the floor for like 40 years, tell me he thinks this was a mild heart-attack, I pay attention. That's when I go, "OK, if Art Cashin thinks it’s a mild heart attack, there's something here."

Brian Montopoli: Do you worry when you're covering it about contributing to further problems by talking about it in the media and casting it as a significant thing? Do you worry about the repercussions of your coverage?

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Last night, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste appeared on MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann.” Batiste has been a CBS News consultant, but last night it was disclosed that he has been asked to leave that position due to his participation in an ad criticizing President Bush. Says Batiste in the ad: "Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril." You can watch the "Countdown" segment here.

CBS News Vice President, Standards and Special Projects Linda Mason confirmed to me that Batiste was asked to vacate his position.

“When we hire someone as a consultant, we want them to share their expertise with our viewers,” she said. “By putting himself front and center in an anti-Bush ad, the viewer might have the feeling everything he says is anti-Bush. And that doesn’t seem like an analytical approach to the issues we want to discuss.”

She said that Batiste's appearance in the ad marked a violation of CBS News standards, in which “we ask that people not be involved in advocacy.”

Added Mason: “We might still go to the general to ask about things, but not as a consultant to CBS News.”

UPDATE: Mason contacted me this afternoon to expand on her comments.

“General Batiste took part in a commercial that’s being shown on television to raise money for veterans against the war,” she said. “It isn’t just that he took an advocacy position.” She also said that the decision would have been the same had Batiste appeared in a similar ad in support of the president.

It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects Linda Mason. 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: Producers will contact you and say "can we do this?" Can you give me an example of that kind of interaction?

Linda Mason: Sure. We're doing a story on something and we want to go get pictures of the person in question. Where can we go? Can we go on the sidewalk outside his house? Can we knock on the door and ask him to come out? …Of course you can't go on somebody's private property, but you can stand on the public sidewalk and have your camera there. They were just looking to get some video. So that's an easy one.

A harder one is we want to go undercover with a hidden camera. We're looking at airport safety, and we have a story on airport workers who don't have to go through the strenuous system that the pilots and the hostesses have to go through. They have a separate door where they come through. Can we send a hidden camera there? We talk to the lawyers and depending on what state you are, etc. etc., yes, and we did it. And it was a very interesting piece.

Brian Montopoli: Recently, as you know of course, a producer was fired for writing a Notebook that was in part lifted from a Wall Street Journal piece. What actions, other than firing the producer involved, has CBS News taken in response to that?

Linda Mason: That's something that happened a month ago, and I'd just as soon pass. We've taken – we think we have fixed the situation.

Brian Montopoli: Has there been any change in reminding people about standards? Has there been anything like that?

Linda Mason: Well, every time something like this happens, whether it's at CBS, the New York Times, NBC, ABC, yeah, we sit down and say, "Hey, we've gotten a little too complacent, we have to pay attention to these things." Absolutely.

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"This broadcast has had three anchors and three executive producers in two years. Everybody wants this to work."

--CBS Business Correspondent Anthony Mason, discussing the hiring of Rick Kaplan as executive producer of the "Evening News." Check out our chat with Mason here.

Today we give you the inaugural entry in our new feature, which we’ve imaginatively named “The Public Eye Chat.” Our first subject is CBS News business correspondent Anthony Mason, who sat down with me yesterday for a discussion about himself, his job, and his profession. Below you’ll find excerpts from the chat. You can also listen to the whole thing by clicking on the link below.

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Click here to hear the full interview.

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Brian Montopoli: Why did you go into TV News -- not “why did you go into news,” or “why did you go into TV,” but why did you go into TV news?

Anthony Mason: Well, in my case it goes way back. I started when I was a kid – and I'm talking probably like 10 or 11 years old – I actually conceived of my own imaginary television network. I mean, I had the whole thing programmed out in a spiral notebook. I programmed every single show. I stole shows from other networks that I liked. It would have been like '66 – I called it Green Hornet Broadcasting ‘cause The Green Hornet was my favorite superhero, and The Green Hornet show was on every night at 7:30 on my network. Even though I think the only ever made 26 Green Hornet shows. But that didn’t matter.

And then I just conceived of all these other shows that I liked, and I would sort of make them up in my head, and then of course I had my newscast. Which I did with – I used my father's telescope as the camera, and I set up a card table, and hung a little sign in front of it that said "WGHB" – Green Hornet Broadcasting – and I did my show.

BM: Do you ever feel constrained by the format of doing – of trying to tell a full story in less than two minutes? Does that frustrate you?

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NBC News has started calling the situation in Iraq a civil war. And the network has stressed that they didn't make the decision to do so lightly. On the "Today Show" this morning, Matt Lauer said this: "As you know, for months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. And for the most part, news organizations, like NBC, have hesitated to characterize it as such. But, after careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted -- that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterized as civil war."

Over the past week, CBS News has repeatedly used the phrase "civl war" in reference to Iraq – but only when discussing what the situation might eventually become. "…one of the worst weekends of violence in Iraq since the war began, the debate is on: Is this a civil war?" asked Gloria Borger on "Face the Nation" yesterday. Here's Tracy Smith on Saturday's "Early Show": "Also in the Middle East today, Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Saudi Arabia, where he'll meet with Saudi leaders and with Iraq's prime minister. It's part of the diplomatic push by the Bush administration to prevent full-scale civil war in Iraq." And Elizabeth Palmer, on the Nov. 24 "Early Show": "Calm is holding for now. But once the funerals are over for yesterday's victims, Iraqis fear that reprisal killings could spiral rapidly into all-out civil war." Here she is on that night's "Evening News": "Iraq remains on the brink of civil war."

Appearing on CBS News recently, figures such as Henry Kissinger, John Murtha and Claire McCaskill have all referred to Iraq as a civil war. The Los Angeles Times, as Jim Romenesko notes, is calling it as such. But according to Linda Mason, Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, CBS News does not presently see any reason to refer to the situation as a civil war. She said that any decision to do so would come from the network as a whole, not any individual program.

"We're just covering the war, and I think we're doing a good job," said Mason. "We don't see a need to characterize it one way or another right now." Mason noted that "that could change."

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As part of a report on the changing face of Congress on last night's "Evening News," CBS News Capitol Hill Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson followed a quote from Democrat Charles Rangel with this bit of analysis: "That might mean higher taxes on upper-income Americans and perhaps reinstituting the death tax."

Attkisson's use of the phrase "death tax" apparently raised some eyebrows, because last night CBS News Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects Linda Mason sent out an email on the matter. "It has been called to my attention that on Thursday's Evening News we referred to the estate tax as the 'death' tax," wrote Mason. "The government taxes estates after death, not the person who dies. Therefore we should refer to the tax as the estate tax."

People on both sides of this issue have tried to frame it through the use of terminology. Those who oppose the tax favor the phrase "death tax," which raises the specter of the government taxing people simply for dying. Some people on the other side, meanwhile, have referred to the elimination of the tax as "the Paris Hilton tax cut." Framing through language is an integral part of the political game – just think about the rhetorical impact of the "pro-choice" movement going by the moniker "anti-life," or the "pro-life" movement identifying itself as "anti-choice." On Tuesday, Mason gave Public Eye her explanation for why CBS News uses “late term abortion” instead of "partial birth abortion," arguing that the latter is "a color phrase for people who are anti-abortion rights."

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CBS News employees recently received a revised version of the CBS News Standards book. I talked to Linda Mason, CBS News Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, about the revisions.

One change from the previous version: A rule forbidding contributions to political campaigns. Such contributions had not been prohibited before.

"We want our reporters to be absolutely pure when they interview candidates of either side or issues that relate to either side," said Mason. "Today, with the instant reporting of political contributions, it has become obvious who gives and to whom, and this we felt would compromise the people who were doing reporting involved with political issues."

I asked Mason why a reporter can't be balanced and still contribute to a campaign. Isn't there a concern that the organization is impinging on the right to free speech of its employees?

"That's fair to argue, and in fact it has been argued here," said Mason. "Our feeling is if you indicate in any way support for one party or another, your reporting will be challenged. Now, somebody took it a step further and said that if you looked at the whole organization there would be a certain number of people for Republicans, a certain number for Democrats, and they kind of cancel each other out. But the problem is each story is looked at as an individual story, and not everybody watches everything on CBS News, so we came to this conclusion."

Another new rule is that prior approval from Mason or CBS News President Sean McManus is required for any outside writing, speeches or blogs.

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The New York Daily News is reporting today that ethical questions have arisen around the large licensing fee paid by ABC News for footage of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin. The footage ran with Barbara Walters' interview with Irwin's widow, Terri.

ABC reportedly paid between the "mid-six figures" and $1 million for the footage, prompting questions about whether what the network was really paying for was the interview.

"We do not pay for interviews. Period," ABC News spokesman Jeff Schneider told the Daily News. "We paid a fair license fee for hours of exclusive material of Steve Irwin. Compensating rights-holders for their video is something that is a standard industry practice."

Also included in the Daily News piece is a claim that CBS News "offered more. They put $1 million on the table." Katie Couric, the source said, would have flown to Australia to conduct the interview.

I asked Linda Mason, CBS News Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, about the report.

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