All Blog Posts from Public Eye

As regular PE readers may have noticed, Matthew Felling has been carrying the load here lately, in the time he has available between Krusty the Clown imitations. That’s because I’ve been preparing for something new: Starting today, I’m officially becoming a political reporter for the new CBSNews.com politics section, which will be relaunching in its shiny new form soon. And that means, after two years, I’m saying goodbye to Public Eye.

Public Eye remains a unique and important experiment in the media world, and two years in, we continue to experience new successes – and face new challenges. I'm happy to say that I'm leaving the site to Mr. Felling, who came on board in May and immediately began generating sharp, entertaining, and insightful work. I'm thrilled to be leaving PE in such capable hands, and can't wait to see where he takes it from here.

First and foremost, I want to thank our readers, especially those who engaged with the site. You make PE better than it ever could be in a vacuum. I want to extend my thanks to all those who have been supportive of our mission, even though it hasn't always been popular to do so, including Mike Sims, Dick Meyer, Betsy Morgan, and Larry Kramer. I also want to tip my hat to those many CBS News folks, whether correspondents, executives, cameramen, or producers, who understand the mission of Public Eye and have engaged with us. Chief among this group is Linda Mason, senior vice president for standards and special projects, who helped us understand CBS News policy and responded to our questions with notable candor.

And then, of course, there is Vaughn Ververs, my predecessor as Public Eye editor, who just happens to be my new editor over in politics. I first met Vaughn when we were set up as adversarial talking heads on MSNBC, and as those who sit around me in the newsroom can attest, the argument hasn't stopped since. But this site could never have been what it is without Vaughn, who steered the ship in the early going and taught me countless lessons along the way. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather be working with as I cover the '08 campaign.

PE may be entering its third year, but we've only been able to tell a small portion of the fascinating stories out there in the media world. Even as I immerse myself in the world of politics, I remain committed to keeping my eye on those stories, and PE will be my primary resource for doing so. It's been a great run so far, and I wouldn't be surprised if the best is yet to come.

Public Eye has been around for more than a year now, but we’re still very much a work in progress. And that's as it should be: After all, we’re in largely uncharted territory here. Print journalism has long embraced the idea that it is worthwhile for someone within the organization to function as a critic and a representative of the public – this person is usually called an “ombudsman.” But the concept has yet to be widely embraced in television news.

We are not exactly ombudsmen, of course – Public Eye has a mission much wider than that. We are tasked with helping the public understand how the news gets made, get to know the people behind it, and get a handle on the trends and traditions that shape coverage. The basic idea is to make the organization more transparent – even if that transparency sometimes reveals flaws.

That’s why we take people inside editorial meetings, talk to producers and correspondents about how they go about their jobs, and introduce readers to the people that put out the news. It’s also why we take on issues that media outlets like CBS News are sometimes reluctant to talk about. Sometimes we air criticisms from outsiders and ask CBS News decision makers to respond to them. Other times we are the critics ourselves.

I am the second editor of Public Eye, having replaced founding editor Vaughn Ververs, who is now senior political editor for CBSNews.com. When we started Public Eye, I think it's fair to say that many within CBS News viewed us warily. But despite some rocky moments, I believe we’ve earned their trust. And we've established credibility with those outside of CBS News who believed that we would be unable to bring real transparency to the organization.

Now comes the fun part: An opportunity to maintain our standards of fairness and quality while taking the site in a new direction. Look for new features in the coming months as we build on our foundation and try out some fresh ideas. We're looking forward to the challenge of building Public Eye, and we hope that you'll stay with us as we continue to refine the site and help usher in a new era of transparency at CBS News.

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Well, that was fun. After two months on the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship in Berlin, I'm back to Public Eye – and the insanity of New York City, a place I'm seeing with new eyes after having been away these last two months. (Incidentally, did everyone in the subway always look so miserable?)

I wrote a number of stories in Berlin, chief among them those featured in my "Letter From Berlin" column on CBSNews.com. A few of my favorites were the story on the German dubbing industry, which concerned the men and women who provide the voices of famous actors in movies but don't get much in the way of professional respect; the one on German reggae band Seeed, which successfully weds the German language to Jamaican beats and is absolutely huge in their home country; the tale of Chris Owens, a professional basketball player who came to Berlin 70 years after his great uncle Jesse's inspiring Olympic performance served as a rebuke to Hitler; and the piece on the challenges facing ambitious young people grappling with Berlin's poor economy and seductive nightlife. I also wrote for the New York Times, for whom I detailed a steroids bust in Europe, and have a number of Berlin-related stories in various other outlets that will be published in the coming weeks and months.

But enough of that: I'm now once again focused on Public Eye. I can't say I'm not already missing Berlin, but I'm looking forward to surveying how the landscape has changed since I left at the end of July. I think I heard something about changes at the Evening News…

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