All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Upon arriving at the office today, this writer came upon a blog post about “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent Rita Braver’s conversation with Lynne Cheney. The post began:

CBS News correspondent Rita Braver's brown-nose interview with Lynne Cheney on Sunday was reason number 1,342 why I am cynical toward and very distrustful of the mainstream corporate media.

The author of the post, Micheal Petrelis, took issue with two main points:

The lighter tone of the interview.

The fact that Rita Braver’s husband is the lawyer who represents Lynne Cheney with publishers. It's important to note that Braver disclosed this herself during the interview.

I began a conversation with Braver about this issue early today, before finding out the conversation had widened to a couple of letters on Jim Romenesko’s MediaNews – the go-to site for a daily climate check of MediaLand. (It’s so “go-to,” we direct you to go to it in the list to the right ----->.)

There I found a letter from David Fluhrer, a self-described "public relations consultant with a healthy respect for journalism," raising the same points as Petrelis -- where he called the interview "fawning." And another from Lee Rood at the Des Moines Register.

In order to get a sense of the decision-making process, I got in touch with Rand Morrison, the Executive Producer of “CBS Sunday Morning” and shared with him the concerns out there in the blogosphere.

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As a national correspondent for "Sunday Morning," Rita Braver is one of the few people in television news who has more than two minutes to tell her stories -- pretty rare in this industry. Over her years at CBS News, she's had all kinds of other unique experiences -- like the time someone pulled a gun and asked for the footage she and her crew had just shot. Eek. Read on for more about Rita...

What do you do at CBS News?

I am a national correspondent for "Sunday Morning," which means I have the best job in television news! I do stories on everything from art and entertainment to politics and policy, and have plenty of time do them -- anywhere from 5-12 minutes -- which is extremely long after working for the "Evening News" where most things needed to be under two minutes.

What single issue should be covered more at CBS News?

Foreign news.

Give us a great behind the scenes story.

Oh, there are so many!

When I was CBS News law correspondent ... a source would occasionally tell me that something big was going to happen ... but not exactly what it would be. I would request a crew to be stationed at FBI headquarters or some other law enforcement office ... or someplace where the source told me a subpoena might be served. We'd get pictures of suspects being brought in ... or agents searching a property ... only later would I learn what was actually going on!

Sometimes there is a whole drama going on off camera ... that the audience never sees. When I was covering the White House I was doing a live talk-back with the Morning News from a roof top near the United Nations, where the president would be speaking later in the day. While I was live on the air, the Secret Service came up and started demanding that my producer (Jim McGlinchy, now a senior producer on the “Evening News”) shut down our feed because, despite our permit, we were in a security zone. I had no idea what was going on as I chatted on about what the president would be saying later in the day ... but out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jim holding out his arms to try to stop the agents from approaching our camera.

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These days on CBS News, you’ll find Rita Braver reporting for “Sunday Morning” on everyone from to Pat Robertson. She’s had a long and varied career at the network, having joined in 1972 as a news desk editor and moving on to become a producer for several CBS News broadcasts. She was CBS News’ law correspondent for a decade and then spent four years covering the White House for CBS. Here’s your chance to ask her what it’s been like. E-mail us your questions or post them in comments – she’ll respond on Thursday.

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