All Blog Posts from Public Eye

A few years back, the Government Accounting Office decided -- according to the New York Times -- that the “Bush administration violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments” – deeming them “propaganda.”

These news segments were pre-taped Video News Releases (VNRs) that aped the look and feel of a news story – complete with the quote-unquote correspondent closing out by saying “I’m Karen Ryan, reporting” – discussing the positive effects of Medicare policy.

The tapes were then sent to local news stations nationwide where they all-too-frequently ran without the disclosure that they were government produced. The practice was thoroughly dissected by the famously prolix Jay Rosen. (Where he cites the Cleveland Plain Dealer, in all its brilliant ‘plain’-ness editorializing “Karen Ryan, you’re a phony.”)

Lesson learned? You’d think.

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“Are FEMA Trailers Making Residents Sick?” was the CBS exclusive two months ago.

Fast forward to last night’s story on the “Evening News” “House Probes FEMA Cover-up”

And this morning’s Washington Post displayed the headline: “FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers .”

In a story that feels more than a little like “Erin Brockovich,” CBS’ investigative team followed some medical anecdotes circulating around the FEMA trailer camps, consulted a number of experts and looked into potential health concerns to get to the bottom of a troubling story.

As reported in that first story on May 16:

Today the government says 86,000 families are still living in those white FEMA travel trailers across the Gulf — more and more waking up with a host of health problems — tied, medical experts believe, to the place they still call home.

When Hurricane Katrina tore apart homes here in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, Angela Orcutt and her young son Nicky found shelter in a FEMA trailer meant for weekend trips.

That trip has now lasted 21 months — something these trailers were not built for. Time that has turned them into human Petri dishes — unregulated experiments on the health of thousands still stuck inside.

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The Skinny, Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web, appears daily here on Public Eye and on the "Evening News" page at CBSNews.com.

The nation's major newspapers dwelled at length on what everyone is suggesting was a snub by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki – who abruptly cancelled a meeting with President Bush yesterday – and the White House denies was a snub. "The White House insisted Mr. Bush was not upset and had not been snubbed," writes the New York Times. " 'Absolutely not,' said Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president."

The cancellation follows yesterday's leak in the The New York Times of a classified memo from NSA Adviser Stephen Hadley that expressed doubts about Maliki's leadership. White House officials "insisted the document had nothing to do with it."

The cancellation also occurred following turmoil in the Iraqi government yesterday, when a bloc of lawmakers loyal to Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr boycotted their duties "to protest Maliki's decision to meet with Bush," writes the Washington Post.

Everyone mentions Bartlett's quote response to the suggestions of a snub, that: "No one should read too much into this." The Los Angeles Times, however, does read into it, writing that "the surprising change of plans suggested more was at work than a scheduling matter among friends," as Bush rarely alters his plans.

"Senior Bush aides offered at least four explanations for the cancellation," writes the LAT, "finally dispatching a more junior official to tell reporters late Wednesday that Maliki and Jordan's King Abdullah II had decided mutually that a three-way conversation was not necessary."

Bush and Maliki met this morning privately and in a joint news conference and "said they agreed to speed the training of Iraqi security forces, and they pledged to continue cooperation between the U.S. and Iraq to stem violence."

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How do reporters find those stories that are far away and not on their beat? Sometimes they just read e-mail from “real people” — and then follow up and chase it down.



That’s how CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s first installment of a week-long “Evening News” series last night, “Crisis Check,” started. We spoke with Allyson Taylor, an “Evening News” producer based in Washington, D.C., who told us how the story unfolded.

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