All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Since there may be some moments this Thanksgiving when you'd rather not be spending time with your friends and family, and would instead prefer to glue yourself to a computer, here's a handy compendium of Public Eye posts from the past few weeks that you may have missed. (You can also check out some of our Editor's Picks in the right column.) You'll probably want to take a gander at two Q&A's with correspondent Jim Stewart, who retired last month, for some of his reflections on 37 years at CBS News. He told us how he developed his sources over the years, and he answered our traditional "10 Plus 1" – which includes a pretty good "biggest jerk" story...

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Jim Stewart, a correspondent at CBS News for more than 16 years, announced his retirement from CBS News last month and Friday was his last day in the office. Before he left, he agreed to be this week's “10 Plus 1" subject. We also spoke to him earlier about his time at CBS News covering the Pentagon, the Justice Department and everything in between (we're considering that his "plus 1.") So here’s one more chance to read about his experiences as a journalist of 37 years.

What do you do at CBS News?

I am a correspondent assigned to cover the the Justice department, the FBI and counter-terrorism.

What single issue should be covered more at CBS News?

There is no single issue that should be covered more at CBS News. I think that I would like to see more beat reporting at CBS News. I think I would like to see us be more inquisitive and critical of government decisions and I think you can do that best by having someone immersed in a beat who closely watches it every day and comes to know it as well as the people who work there.

Give us a great behind the scenes story.

Well, I could get sued if I told some of the stories... In the news media, you get to see behind the scenes all the time, it's like watching sausage made. It’s not pretty sometimes.

When you pursue any journalism, especially on a national scale, you're behind the scenes every day because you are the first author of history. You're writing what we think we just saw; what we think we just heard and you are behind the scenes for that. You are there during the half hour before the press conference starts and you see the aides running crazily trying to gather facts for the defense secretary or the president or the attorney general or whomever it may be. Every day is a behind the scenes experience on history.

Have you ever been assigned a story you objected to? How did you deal with it?

I would be asked to do stories all the time both in print and in broadcast media that I thought didn't rise to the level of being a national story. I felt it was just a waste of our time to report it. But I did the stories, in any event, convinced that the viewing public was smart enough to realize that this was just a snapshot of something and nothing to really be upset or concerned or worried about. The public is smarter than we think.

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Correspondent Jim Stewart, who has been a journalist for 37 years (more than 16 of them at CBS News) announced his retirement from CBS News last month. As we said then, and we’ll say again, he’s long been a friend to Public Eye. He was again kind enough to sit down with me on his last day in the office on Friday to reflect a bit on his time at CBS News. Tune in on Thursday for more from Jim, when he’ll be featured as this week’s “10 Plus 1” subject.

What will you miss the most about this job, what will you miss the least?

That’s easy to answer. I mean, I will miss people the most. It's not about the stories, it’s about the people. I learned after switching from newspapers to broadcast journalism that this job is much harder to do. You can travel with a certain anonymity as a print reporter, with your pencil and your notepad and a quizzical look on your face. [In television news] sometimes you drag along two-ton trucks, antennas, camera crews, producers, bright lights and televisions. It’s hard to get spontaneity. It’s hard to get past the veneer that people now automatically put up when they think they're "on TV." It’s also much more deadline-driven.

What I will not miss is this splintering of our profession that, I think, has demeaned it. There was a time when you could go to the magazine section of your drugstore and choose from 20 different publications. I honestly think that now you can probably find 20 different publications on just the game of golf. There was a time when you had three television channels to choose from and I was stunned to find out I now receive 338.

I'm not sure we're well served by that many voices. I'm not looking for a state-run television system. I'm not looking for one network to dominate all others. But you do lose quality when you disperse the talent and the different viewpoints across such a broad spectrum.

Why do you think you've been able to develop the sources you have over the period of time you've been a journalist?

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CBS News announced today that national correspondent Jim Stewart, who has been at the network since 1990 and a journalist for 37 years, will retire in mid-November.

A press release includes comments from Stewart:

“While I look forward to turning a new page in my own life, CBS News has already begun a whole new chapter. Leslie Moonves has given it the resources, Sean McManus the new leadership and Katie Couric the star power to make it number one in the business. I wish them and all my old colleagues nothing but the best.”

“As his colleagues and competitors know, Jim is simply one of the best in the business,” said Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports. “He is exactly what every news organization wants – a highly intelligent, eminently fair and doggedly determined reporter who also breaks big stories. We will miss Jim very much.”

Stewart has long been a friend to Public Eye. Back in January, he explained to us the background of a decision to withhold information from an “Evening News” story at the request of the FBI. More recently, for a look at the effectiveness of FOIA requests, he explained why they offer “too little bang for your buck” in his line of work. Stewart was also kind enough to let me tag along as he covered the first day of the Zacarias Moussaoui sentencing trial, a story he covered from beginning to end. He’s helped us a lot in explaining the editorial process behind the stories and for that, we’ll miss him very much as well.

You can read the full press release after the jump.

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You've already gotten a sense of what it was like outside the Zacarias Moussaoui sentencing trial yesterday, so here's part II of the story -- a look inside the courthouse and inside the "Evening News" story on the trial's opening day.

Things started to stir up outside the courthouse around 12:30 p.m., once the jury and alternates were selected and Associated Press reporter Matthew Barakat came outside to brief reporters on details from the jury selection process. (You can watch his briefing .) Because the courtroom was filled with the 86 members of the jury pool during that proceeding, only two media representatives were allowed in – one from the print media (Barakat) and one pool sketch artist (instead of having a representative from the television network pool, the networks sacrificed their seat for a sketch artist, since Barakat would be relaying the same information as a television pool reporter would.)

More of the press was allowed into an overflow courtroom during the proceeding, which has several closed circuit televisions set up with a wide, static shot of the courtroom. The shot does not include a view of the jurors and Moussaoui is not equipped with a microphone. So, for this particular element of the trial, reporters relied on Barakat for descriptions of each of the jurors – their races and genders – as well as other details such as whether they made eye contact with the defendant. Barakat noted that Moussaoui's only utterance so far was a request to use the bathroom.

“We’re very lucky because the AP reporters happen to be very good, very accurate,” Stephanie Lambidakis told me later. She was co-producing Jim Stewart’s story for that night’s “Evening News" along with Rob Hendin. You can watch Stewart’s story by clicking on the video screen.

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Last night, the CBS "Evening News" led with Jim Stewart's exclusive story about how FBI technicians, "using breakthrough forensic techniques," have made significant progress in identifying the origins of Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs. IEDs are homemade bombs, often buried beside roads, which have represented one of the most significant dangers to US troops in Iraq.(Click on the video player to watch the story.)



After providing a number of details about the FBI's forensic efforts in the piece, Stewart said the following:

"At the request of the FBI, CBS News has agreed not to report specific findings about the reconstructed devices. The FBI expressed concerns to CBS that revealing such details might compromise ongoing operations and jeopardize the safety of US personnel in Iraq."

I asked Stewart about the decision not to share the "specific findings." He said, first, that CBS News was not given the story on the condition that certain details be left out – "the FBI is not in the habit of handing out stories and attaching embargoes to them," he said. CBS News got the story through its own reporting, which included a search of the public record, Stewart said, and then shared with the FBI the basics of what it had found, though not the specific script of the report.



The FBI, he explained, subsequently objected to the level of detail CBS News planned to include in the report. The bureau argued that if CBS were to disclose certain facts, it could lead those who make the explosives to alter their methods, "potentially allowing these people to remain free and continue their work killing American men and women," as Stewart put it.

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