10 Plus 1: Dan Collins Calls In

(CBS)

What do you do at CBS News?

I'm the senior producer who runs the hard news operation at the Web site. I'm responsible for getting the day's most important stories onto the site in a timely fashion. I enjoy my work. The Internet is still kind of a new frontier, and network news brings you into contact with a group of talented, vain and occasionally scary people. So there's not much boredom. It's a round-the-clock operation that runs something like a cross between a cable news channel and a wire service. As paradoxical as it might seem, it's a great job for a procrastinator like me, since nothing can be put off until tomorrow.

Religion. I confess to only dimly understanding why the work of a Danish cartoonist should touch off violent worldwide protests. I'd like to know more.

Well, one of my toughest days at the Web site came about 15 month ago. My boss, Mike Sims, called me at home around 5 a.m. and told me to come into the office. There was no need to discuss the reason. For weeks, we'd all been waiting for the report of an independent panel that investigated "Memogate," the disputed 60 Minutes II story about President Bush's National Guard service. CBS had decided to use the Web site to deliver what proved to be extremely depressing news. The whole enterprise was shrouded in secrecy to prevent premature news leaks. I was closeted in a conference room in our office at the CBS Broadcast Center.

I sat in front of a computer terminal with no Internet access and no connection to our internal communication system. Around 6 a.m., Mike Sims dropped the bulging report on the table next to me. From a journalistic point of view, writing the story should have been simple. As a wire service reporter, I had churned out dozens of stories based on reports that spewed forth from New York City's municipal agencies. But this report proved to be different.

After only a glance, it became clear that the distinguished careers of four CBS News veterans were about to be destroyed. The thought frightened me. I knew and liked one of them. I couldn't help thinking about her. My mind wandered to the kind of impact it might also have on her husband, even her small children. There was also a sense of institutional sorrow. This place has a way of seeping into your bones. At the time, CBS News' morning news meeting was held in a small, nondescript room in the "fishbowl," the center of the network's news universe.

The only distinguishing feature of the room was a black-and-white photograph of Edward R. Murrow that hung from the wall. I could never really take my eyes off that photograph. It was my connection to the gloried past of CBS News. Now, I knew, the reputation of that organization was about to take a hit. So a story that should have been easy to write proved to a burden that saddened me and my colleagues at the Web site.

Sure. We often do tabloid stories that become absolutely excruciating. If I never hear the names Chandra Levy, Scott Peterson and Natalee Holloway again, it will be too soon. My way of coping? Grin and bear it.

Well, like every other Catholic schoolboy, I considered becoming a priest. And following my discharge from the Army years later, I applied for a job at a large insurance company and was promptly rejected. You probably won't be shocked to learn that I drifted into journalism like so many others in this profession of misfits. And I'm still undecided about what to choose as my imaginary career.

Sure. Needless to say, I read Public Eye religiously. Almost all of my Internet musings are job-related. I start the day by scanning our own Web site and then looking at our competitors. After that, I move on to the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. One of the great things about the Web is the fact that it puts the best newspapers in the country at your fingertips. I also check out the New York tabloids and USA Today. If we're doing important news stories out of smaller cities, I'll look at the Web sites of the newspapers in those communities for additional information. As for pleasure, my passion is fine wine. There's a Philadelphia lawyer named Mark Squires with a terrific wine Web site. I spend as much time there as I can there (which isn't much time at all, unfortunately.)

I read "Bleak House" after watching the BBC series. It's a terrific novel. Right now, I'm reading "The Devil in the White City," a tale of the Gilded Age. As for movies, "City of God" is probably the best film I've seen in the last couple of years. And there's a documentary, "Capturing the Friedmans," that is absolutely riveting.

As a little boy growing up in the Dorchester section of Boston, I can recall my next door neighbor, Mrs. Hernon, shouting "Go get 'em McCarthy!" at her TV set during the Army-McCarthy hearings. I had come into her apartment to run an errand for her.

Probably the sense of self loathing that seems to have infected the profession. As I go about my daily business, I'm impressed with the general level of accuracy I see in stories on the Web sites of newspapers and TV stations – big and small – across the country.

Ryan Seacrest. Just kidding. Let's see. In the former New York governor category, Mario Cuomo was weirdly interesting. Hugh Carey was more than slightly bizarre. Mickey Rooney is probably the biggest jerk I ever covered.

I'm wondering what you found to be the most challenging aspect reporting for the NY Daily News? The most rewarding?

The News could be a pretty demanding place. Years ago, I broke a story in the News about a guy named Srully Blotnick, who at the time was a columnist for Forbes magazine. Blotnick had a reputation as a social scientist, and had written five books. My story reported that his research was fabricated. I was grilled by several News editors about every aspect of the story before it made print. Blotnick lost his job at Forbes and pretty much disappeared from print after it ran. Writing tabloid stories was fun -- and sometimes very sad. Again, this was years ago. The News flew me to Denver to write a story about Steven McDonald, a New York City cop who had been shot by a criminal and paralyzed as a result. McDonald was undergoing treatment in Denver. I was very moved by his plight and by the fortitude and devotion of his wife, Patti Ann. I wrote what I thought to be a poignant story about the McDonalds for the News. That gave me a lot of satisfaction.