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Reader Jim J. writes in to take issue with an apparent contradiction during this morning's "Early Show":

"I was watching the Early Show this morning…The headline on the screen reads 'Libby Pardon', while at the VERY SAME TIME, Bill Plante's words are 'Libby has not been pardoned, he is still a convicted felon.' So which is it?"

Good catch, Jim J. The answer to your question is that Libby has not actually been pardoned – and that the person responsible for putting "Libby Pardon" onscreen made a mistake. From the president's statement on the matter:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

To commute a sentence is to make it less severe; a pardon, as Adam Liptak writes, "excuses or forgives the offense itself." In this case, the conviction stands, as well as the probation and fine – but the prison term that came with it has been erased.

Reader Jim J. writes in to take issue with an apparent contradiction during this morning's "Early Show":

"I was watching the Early Show this morning…The headline on the screen reads 'Libby Pardon', while at the VERY SAME TIME, Bill Plante's words are 'Libby has not been pardoned, he is still a convicted felon.' So which is it?"

Good catch, Jim J. The answer to your question is that Libby has not actually been pardoned – and that the person responsible for putting "Libby Pardon" onscreen made a mistake. From the president's statement on the matter:

Mr. Libby was sentenced to thirty months of prison, two years of probation, and a $250,000 fine. In making the sentencing decision, the district court rejected the advice of the probation office, which recommended a lesser sentence and the consideration of factors that could have led to a sentence of home confinement or probation.

I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.

To commute a sentence is to make it less severe; a pardon, as Adam Liptak writes, "excuses or forgives the offense itself." In this case, the conviction stands, as well as the probation and fine – but the prison term that came with it has been erased.

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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"Parents may not realize it, but their soccer-playing kids may be exposed to a hidden danger every time they take the field, a danger that could hurt or even kill."

So opens the Web version of a story that appeared on the "Early Show" yesterday about the dangers of soccer goals. The goals, the story notes, are heavy, and they can fall and hurt kids. Fair enough. But then there's this:

The U.S. Soccer Federation says 14 million kids aged 6-17 play the sport in this country, with up to 500,000 goals in use.

Soccer goal tip-over accidents kill at least one child every year, and injure 200, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

So, roughly, one kid out of the 14 million who play soccer are killed by goals each year. That's not nothing, of course. But statistically it's pretty insignificant.

That isn't to say this isn't information worth knowing for parents: Soccer goals can be dangerous, and it's helpful for the "Early Show" to offer tips on how to make sure they are safe. If that one in 14 million kids who does get killed happens to be yours – the on-air version of the story, which you can watch by clicking on video box, offers a wrenching interview with the parents of a boy who was killed by a falling goal – the statistics don't much matter.

But the story could have be done without trafficking in the alarmist Your Kids Are At Risk rhetoric that the makes the media such an easy target. The on-air version began with this: "14 million children play organized soccer in America, but there could be a serious safety hazard on the field that is putting their lives in danger." Local-news fear-mongering ledes like that make the perils of soccer goals sound a lot worse than they actually are. And they contribute to the perception that the media are so interested in scaring viewers whenever possible that they should simply be tuned out.

On Monday, we told you about the decision by the "Saturday Early Show" to reach out Larry Seidlin, the oft-criticized judge in the Anna Nicole Smith case. "I have been extremely impressed by your compassion in the Anna Nicole case and I would love to discuss with you the idea of being our judge on a new segment, `Morning Justice,'" wrote senior producer Michael Rosen in a letter obtained by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Now it seems that a "Sunday Morning" profile, airing over the weekend, will reveal that even CNN and Court TV host Nancy Grace – not exactly a darling of legal ethicists – has complaints about Seidlin. "As for the judge who heard the case, Grace joins the chorus of critics finding fault with his conduct," according to a CBSNews.com story. Said Grace: "It is about who is allowed to sit on a bench."

This morning, the "Early Show" interviewed Jerry Monaco, his son and their lawyer. The Monaco family recently took a trip to Disney World, where they met Tigger, the exuberant tiger from A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books. Or rather, a Disney "cast member" in a Tigger costume. And that's when the Monaco's horrific experience began.

The Monaco family was posing with Tigger while Jerry filmed them with his video camera. Suddenly, Jerry's teenaged son, Jerry Jr., was "smack[ed] in the face" by Tigger, as "Early Show" anchor Hannah Storm characterized it. Jerry Sr. called the incident a "sucker punch." Jerry Jr., who later "woke up with neck pain," was eventually taken to the hospital for treatment. As of this morning, Jerry Jr. says, "most of the pain is gone 'cause I have medicine."

Here at Public Eye, we've long been opposed to people dressed as fictional characters punching teenagers in the face. But we urge you to watch the video of the incident and decide for yourself what, exactly, Tigger did – the "Early Show" helpfully plays the video over and over during the course of the interview.

We can sort of understand why the "Early Show" had the Monacos on – video footage like this is hard to resist, and the folks at the "Early Show" have a couple hours to fill in the morning. But we'd like to think that we would have brought somewhat more skepticism to the table than Storm, who did not challenge the family's characterization of the incident.

To her credit, Storm did ask, at the end of the interview, what the family was hoping to get from Disney. And while the Monaco's lawyer said only that they want an apology, it's safe to assume that the family is open to compensation. As for the interview, it took place because both sides got something out of it – the "Early Show" was able to run some moderately compelling video, and the Monacos got a platform that allowed them to put pressure on Disney. Everybody, it seems, was a winner. Well, except maybe Tigger. And Disney. And us.

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Hardy Spire is a senior producer for "The Early Show," based in Washington, D.C. As our "10 Plus 1" subject this week, Hardy shares a story about a very awkward encounter between two newsmakers in a Montana saloon, what he remembers about Frank Reynolds when Ronald Reagan got shot in 1981 and why he'd like to see less of the herd mentality in the media today.

What do you do at CBS News?

I’m the Senior Producer in Washington, D.C., for "The Early Show." I manage a staff of "Early Show" producers and associate producers who are responsible for covering all regional news including politics, the Presidency, the Supreme Court … and of course, panda bears at the National Zoo. Prior to that I spent four years as a White House producer working with/traveling with/learning from veteran CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante.

What single issue should be covered more at CBS News?

I agree with previous respondents to this question that there is not one single area that lacks coverage by CBS. One thought that occurs to me is that during my travels as a White House producer to 40 different countries, I noticed how citizens of other nations seem to have a much better sense of what's going on in the rest of the world than Americans do. That's not just in terms of conflict but in terms of economy, politics, and culture. For that reason I would love to see greater coverage of international stories that do not necessarily involve war.

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It's company holiday party season, and "The Early Show," in an effort to offer up some News You Can Use, ran a story this morning on surviving the experience. Alas, it's depressing enough to make you skip the party altogether and hole up with a movie and a hell of a lot of eggnog.

First of all, know this: The holiday party is not – NOT! – for having fun. "The goal is getting a little face time with the big boss," says etiquette expert Jodi R.R. Smith. You shouldn't talk shop, she says, but you should go in with a plan as to what to say. So how do you find out what the big boss might be interested in? Simple: A little cyber-stalking! Says Smith: "Nowadays, there's no excuse for people not knowing information about the boss, because you can Google anybody and get good information."

Also, if your spouse is too ugly, or lacks the social graces to navigate the hors d'oeuvres table, leave that dead weight at home. "If you're concerned about how he or she might make you look, then there's another tip: Consider going alone. Take an honest but loving look at your significant other and decide whether that person is really going to be helpful to you," says Smith.

More advice: Let's say you need to go to the bathroom. Don't admit it! Bathrooms are no place for professionals. Saying you have to head for the head is simply not "a professional image to project." And for heaven's sake, never say you're going to the bar, "because you run the risk of appearing to be an alcoholic." (Don't worry about the fact that this means you won't be able to drink – according to Smith, you should barely be drinking anyway.)

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The big news at CBS today is that René Syler is leaving "The Early Show." If you greeted that news with a "wait…who?," it wouldn’t be entirely surprising. "The Early Show," which has struggled in the ratings, has long suffered from a lack of strong, distinct personalities. This isn't Syler's fault – the show has never really made a point of bringing out the unique traits of its anchors. "Today" had Katie and Matt (and now has Matt and Meredith), while "Good Morning America" had Diane and Charlie (and now, well, still has Diane. And Sam Champion!) Ask people about "The Early Show," by contrast, and they're likely to mention Harry Smith – and a whole bunch of ladies, including that one who is married to that chairman guy, right?

That now seems to be changing. CBS News Vice President of Morning Broadcasts Steve Friedman, who was brought on to help revamp "The Early Show," tells Variety that the show will move towards the four-anchor format of its competitors. (Those anchors would be Smith, Julie Chen, Hannah Storm, and weatherman Dave Price.) And those anchors are going to have more defined roles. "The show is moving in the right direction but it lacks definition because we had four people who were basically interchangeable, and that's a tough way to do a morning television program," said Friedman.

I'm one of those who would like to see "The Early Show" become newsier – though that's certainly not widely seen as a path to better ratings. (The newsiest morning show around – CNN's "American Morning" – has struggled to find an audience.) The good news on that front is that Friedman plans to make the beginning of "The Early Show" more of "a hard-hitting news half-hour."

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The experience of a small town besieged by media attention is always a struggle, both for residents and those covering them. That challenge seems elevated, however, in the case of the Amish school shooting in Nickel Mines, Pa., since the Amish culture is one that prefers not to call attention to itself. The Amish are also quite averse to being photographed, which poses an obvious challenge for television reporters in particular. Correspondent Tracy Smith has been reporting on this story for “The Early Show” and below, she discusses how she has gone about approaching members of the Nickel Mines community with those considerations in mind.

I knew driving down here that this was going to be a tough story to cover on a number of levels. It’s always difficult, both personally and professionally, to do stories about the deaths of children, especially an incident like this, so violent and so senseless. And this happened in the Amish community, where, in general, people don’t want to be photographed, let alone talk on camera. The reason, as I understand it, is that they don’t want to glorify the individual, that modesty before God is one of the key aspects of the Amish faith and life. So on my drive down here, I spoke with a print reporter who covers the Amish community regularly to get some guidelines. She said if we kept a respectful distance and asked before shoving a camera in someone’s face (something I’d like to think I do in most situations), we should be OK. I also read some research I’d pulled on the Amish, which explained why they don’t use electricity, watch TV, drive cars.

Residents here have been patient and kind in explaining this community to me, and though I still have a lot to learn about them, I have profound respect for what they believe and how they live their lives.

I’ve tried to let community members approach me, instead of approaching them, by making eye contact, smiling, just being unobtrusive and polite. That’s how I met the Amish woman who agreed to be interviewed in silhouette the other day. [You can watch that segment .]

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