CBS News Withholds Details At FBI's Request
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.
Video: 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.
It was a "convoluted argument," said Stewart, "but a valid argument." The decision about whether or not to keep the specific details out of the report ultimately fell to Stewart, "Evening News" anchor Bob Schieffer, CBS News president Sean McManus, and "Evening News" executive producer Rome Hartman.
"We did not get into a situation of negotiating details of what was in the story, but we heard their concerns," said Hartman. The debate between the four men about how to proceed, he said, was "lively" and "spirited," but in the end the decision not to air certain details was "fairly straightforward." It grew, he said, out of "our responsibility as citizens and as journalists."
It is rare for CBS News to withhold information at the request of the government, though not unheard of. Stewart noted two instances in which the CBS News agreed to the FBI's request to hold a story: Once when CBS News learned that authorities had discovered the identity and surrounded the home of the Unabomber, and once when it learned the FBI had located a possible al Qaeda cell in Lackawanna, New York.
Without getting into the specific details of this case, it's somewhat difficult to discuss whether or not CBS News made the right decision, or whether viewers were ill served by the exclusion. One might argue that the answer to those questions here is obvious – if there is any chance that disclosing certain information could put soldiers at risk, the argument goes, a media outlet has a duty not to report that information. But keeping information quiet at the government's request could also lead to a marginalization of the media that isn't in the public interest. Most of us can agree that we don't want the FBI, or any government agency, deciding what we should and shouldn't know. The question for people in the media is how much leeway to give authorities when they make such requests – and that's the kind of question that doesn't always lend itself to easy answers.