All Blog Posts from Public Eye

You know, we really don't write enough about Paris Hilton here. So! Here's your daily dose of Paris commentary, courtesy of a (maybe just a tiny bit sarcastic) Bob Schieffer:

Face The Nation did not get the big interview with Paris Hilton.

I feel terrible about it.

I haven't felt so low since one of our competitors broke into programming to report that the embalming of Anna Nicole Smith's body had begun. Getting scooped on a big story is never fun, not then, not ever. And we never got to first base on that story either, which is why we tried to be competitive on this one.

We held strategy sessions on how to stay ahead on the Paris story. In the finest network tradition, we blamed each other for not getting the interview. We even leaked the infighting to competitors. But nothing worked.

All those big-time bookers dangled all those deals in front of Paris' family, and we were just out of our league. Heck, we couldn't even figure out what league we were in.

Read it all here.

DC Dispatch: Public Eye was sent to be the fly on the wall of today’s internal seminar for new CBS hires and interns about “Television Production 101.” Here’s your intrepid PE correpondent’s report from inside:

(Heck, being “The Mole” worked for Anderson Cooper …)

Bob Schieffer started off the meeting in his standard folksy manner, informing the crowd that he’s nearing his 50-year anniversary in the news business. Then he shared the story of the interview that led to his career, when he applied for work at a radio station. The man running the station pointed across the street and said “tell me what’s over there.” Schieffer observed “it’s the football field.” The interviewer responded “Yeah, but tell me what you see over there, describe it.” Apparently, given this second chance, Schieffer did well enough to earn a spot on the staff and … the rest is history.

After that, a lot of the seminar was spent deconstructing a four minute segment put together in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. Cameramen, producers and correspondents discussed the logistical difficulties of trying to wrap their heads around the story in order to condense it to a comprehensive report. "CBS Evening News” producer Andy Triay spelled out the difference between the live cable reporting of the story and the CBS segment analyzed. “A cable reporter's job is to say here is what I can see from this vantage point, but network reporters have to say here is what happened today” when faced with putting together a taped segment tying together all the day’s developments.** Also, overlooked logistical issues were discussed, from the four-hour trip down to Blacksburg, to the difficulties of finding set-up shots and witnesses to the task of trying to identify, you know, tracking down what happened in the midst of confusion and chaos.

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"Will I go back on? If it were anyone else, I wouldn't have anything to do with them. But I'm not going to sever a relationship with someone who has apologized for what he said. He's my friend. I hate what he did, but he's still my friend."

--Bob Schieffer, speaking about Don Imus' radio program in the Washington Post.

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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Last night we received an email from "DYN175" asking the following:

What are the standards at CBS News for reporting vs. editorializing?

On the "CBS Evening News" tonight, February 14th, [Capitol Hill Correspondent] Sharyl Attkisson gave a report on Homeland Security Secretary [Michael] Chertoff and his actions dealing with Hurricane Katrina. In the Q&A after the report, [anchor] Bob Schieffer turned to her and asked, "Do you think, Sharyl, that Chertoff's job is on the line here?"

Such a question clearly requires the reporter to state a personal opinion. It would seem to me that this would cross the line into editorializing. Does CBS News have any written standards on this?

I talked to Bob Schieffer about that issue and the question and answer portion of the "Evening News" more generally.

"We're not trying to have people give personal opinions," says Schieffer. "We're trying to explain, to put things into context." He added: "There has been all this behind the scenes questioning and whispering about whether Chertoff will lose his job, and that's why I asked her about it."

Schieffer compares the question and answer portion of the "Evening News" broadcast to a sidebar in a newspaper. "The main story covers the who, what, where, why, and when, and the sidebar offers analysis, color, some detail that you couldn't get into in the main story," he says.

Such offerings are essential, he says, if the "Evening News" wants to compete in a crowded news environment.

"If the evening newses are going to survive – and I'm talking about all of them, not just us – they have to evolve beyond what they have been. If all we're going to do is put on a minute and a half piece that's the same as the minute and a half piece that's been running on cable all day, we're not going to make it." He says the question and answer exchange with correspondents, which fall somewhere between straight reporting and cable news-style editorializing, makes for content that sets the "Evening News" apart.

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One of the top stories on CBSNews.com today concerns Pat Robertson's comments about Ariel Sharon. Robertson suggested Friday "that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for 'dividing God's land,'" as the story puts it. Robertson, who has been a figurehead of the evangelical movement since he powered onto the national scene as a presidential candidate in 1988, has garnered attention recently because of controversial comments, such as his suggestion that disaster may strike a small Pennsylvania town because residents "voted God out of your city" and his call for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Presently he controls a television network, the Christian Broadcasting Network, and hosts its flagship show, "The 700 Club."



Guest blogging on the Web site of the liberal Washington Monthly, Amy Sullivan wrote, "I try not to comment on all of the ridiculous things that come out of Pat Robertson's mouth because 1) he's a moonbat who seems to be reading a very different translation of the Bible than I am, and 2) most evangelicals, even conservative ones, don't think of him as a spokesperson who represents their views."



The response prompted another liberal blogger, Atrios, to ask: "So who would represent the views of conservative evangelicals better than Pat Robertson?" He added: "I'd quite like the views of religious conservatives to be represented by people who are less nuts than Pat Robertson even if I subscribe neither to their religion nor the politics."



I asked "Evening News" host Bob Schieffer for his thoughts on Robertson and whether he thought there were others who better represent evangelicals.



Schieffer, who considers himself a religious person, has covered Robertson and interviewed him several times in the past, and says "at the beginning he represented a particular point of view, and articulated it quite well." But he's reluctant to cover him now.



"I think we have to be very careful about quoting Robertson, because I'm not sure who he represents anymore," he said. "His comments have gone beyond interesting and into bizarre." The "Evening News," he points out, has not covered Robertson's recent comments.

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Yesterday Congressman John Murtha, an influential House Democrat on military spending matters, made a speech in which he called for the beginning of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.



Murtha's words were big news, at least from the media's perspective. All three nightly newscasts led with them, as did the New York Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers. Some Republicans and conservative-leaning bloggers, however, felt otherwise. They pointed out that Murtha has been criticizing the administration's war effort for a long time, and many questioned why members of the media felt this latest speech was noteworthy. Here's Glenn Reynolds: "WHY IS MURTHA'S STATEMENT ON THE WAR NEWS today when he said basically the same thing a year and a half ago?"



Reynolds was referring to Murtha's statements on May 6, 2004, in which he said, "[w]e cannot prevail in this war as it is going today." He also said: "We either have to mobilize or we have to get out," and said the war was "unwinnable" unless changes were made. Murtha added, however, that he was in favor of increasing the number of U.S. troops rather than pulling out, a far different position than he took yesterday. CNN summarized his "overall point" at the time as "more troops and equipment should be sent to Iraq."



It was not the first time Murtha had spoken out about the war. From The New York Times, Sept. 16, 2003:

The Democrat, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a decorated Vietnam veteran, said that he had been misled into voting for the war by incorrect information from top administration officials and that the president had also been misled.

Later that year, he accused the Bush administration of purposly waiting until after the presidential election for a new military call up.



I asked CBS "Evening News" anchor Bob Schieffer why Murtha's latest salvo was newsworthy, in light of his past statements.

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Political news junkies have had plenty to obsess over lately. Each of the last four weekdays have given us stories that, in less tumultuous times, might have dominated the news for days on end. On Thursday, there was the withdrawal of Harriet Miers from consideration for the Supreme Court. Then, on Friday, there was more bad news for the Bush administration, in the form of Scooter Libby's indictment. Monday, Libby was wiped from the front pages in favor of Samuel Alito, who had been nominated for Miers' spot on the Court. And then yesterday brought a surprise: The Democrats' move to force a closed door session in the Senate – and bring the media's focus back to the Bush administration's justification for war.



With all this activity, it's easy to forget the Miers resignation and Libby indictment took place less than a week ago. Both stories have faded in our memories with each day's new front-pager. And that's no accident, of course. The Bush administration wanted to get the bad news out of the way last week, and make a comeback this week. But the Democrats threw a wrench in that plan. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote today that Democrats had engaged in "a brazen effort to change the subject from the Supreme Court confirmation of Sam Alito, which Republicans prefer, to war deaths and Scooter Libby's indictment."



He even got a money quote from a Democratic leadership aide: "Alito had his day. We're going back to our story."



And the media followed. The Bush administration wanted the news yesterday to be about the president's plan for fighting bird flu, which Bush outlined in a speech at the National Institute of Health. But two of the three nightly newscasts led instead with the battle in the Senate – or, um, showdown. The cable networks and newspapers also covered the story extensively, which meant less emphasis on Alito and the president's plan. "We were going to lead with bird flu yesterday," says Bob Schieffer, anchor of the CBS "Evening News." "We thought it was something people needed to know about." But instead the lead story became the Senate. The top story on CBSNews.com mentioned "the possible misuse of intelligence data by the Bush administration" in the subhead. It's safe to say Democrats were pleased.



But what about journalists? Over the last few days, it's been hard for even casual observers not to notice the degree to which politicians time their actions and announcements in order to impact the news cycle.

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“The news is so awful lately, we thought at least a little good news would be in order. So we close tonight with the story of a man who has an unusual relationship with ducks,” said Bob Schieffer last night, introducing the final piece on the “Evening News,” a profile by John Blackstone of a California duck hunter who also rescues ducks in the region, where the wetlands are dwindling.



ABC’s “World News Tonight” also closed with a feature that was unrelated to Katrina or other news of the day—a piece on a recent study from Columbia University on the benefits of family dinners. “Those of us who have children don't need a reminder of how hard it can sometimes be to spend as much time as we'd like with our kids,” said anchor Elizabeth Vargas, introducing the piece.



With such an overwhelming amount of news about Hurricane Katrina--most of it depressing--when and how does a broadcast decide that it’s time to include something unrelated and upbeat?

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