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Revisiting the Batiste Decision

By Matthew Felling

May 14, 2007 / 1:45 PM EDT / CBS News

(CBS/EARLY SHOW)

With the weekend passing since news broke that CBS News had asked military consultant Army Major General John Batiste to resign due to his participation in a political ad, the time has come to sort it all out. And the lesson seems to be that conflicts of interest – or merely the appearance of them – aren't too popular in 21st century journalism.

As my colleague Brian reported in this space Friday: "[Linda Mason, CBS News Vice President, Standards and Special Projects] said that Batiste's appearance in the ad marked a violation of CBS News standards, in which 'we ask that people not be involved in advocacy.'"

A quick review of CBS News standards reads:

Employees political preferences are their business, not the Company's, and the two should not be confused. (Although these general principles apply to CBS News personnel, News employees are additionally reminded of the prohibitions against participation in partisan political campaigns as embodied in their respective news standards dealing with public positions on controversial issues.)
Simply stated, it is the policy of CBS that it will not take any part in any partisan political process in any form.

And people wonder why Jim Lehrer doesn't vote. In MediaLand, reputations and brands are being created and/or earned each and every day and Andre Agassi's words ring true: Image is everything. With ideologically-based watchdog groups lined up on both sides of the political debate, it's as if the American audience is conditioned to find bias everywhere – like a crowd of people staring at a Magic Eye poster until they find something that can be chalked up as A Hidden Agenda. And a CBS consultant popping up on a commercial from VoteVets.org, a self-identified Political Action Committee, doesn't require any heavy intellectual lifting to raise eyebrows.

One critical reader, BigBearVo, wrote:

The producers and execs at CBS news who approved the continued "consultant" status of General Batiste knew full well his strong opinions, and if fact had hired him to specifically to express those opinions. His appearance in the VoteVets ad only increases his credibility … CBS has violated the spirit of free speech, which is, of course, one of the founding pillars of a free press in a free society.

BigBearVo – or "BBV" as I'll call him – is right to ask the "caveat emptor" question. Here is a man who Newsweek is calling "America's Angriest General." CBS surely had some sense of what it was getting when it hired Batiste. But as for CBS News violating "the spirit of free speech," Batiste is guaranteed the right to speak his mind, not the right to a CBS News consultant contract. And I don't think anything that transpired last week will stop him from speaking out in future commercials and speaking opportunities, either.

Another reader, AnacherFat, took issue with Linda Mason's assertion that it wasn't just the advocacy of the VoteVet's ad, but the fact that the ad was trying to "raise money for veterans against the war." While it's true that the VoteVets commercial was an advocacy ad by an advocacy group, it's ambiguous to what degree it constituted fundraising. The ad does feature a link to a website where donations are solicited, but Batiste never brought up the issue of money or donations during the commercial.