The fine folks at RatherBiased are all over the breaking news coming out of CBS this morning:
Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.
Mapes’ firing is not unexpected in most circles. She has been heavily criticized all along for being “behind” the Memogate fiasco at “60 Minutes Wednesday,” and bears the brunt of responsibility here. RatherBiased’s Matthew Sheffield told TMD that “The firings are a good start. We’ll see if the report was as forthcoming as it needs to be.”
The report Sheffield refers to is the expected result of an independent panel that CBS News announced on September 22, 2004. On Sunday, RatherBiased pointed out that it had been 110 days since the panel was put forth - Monday brings day 111, and the complete report [pdf], via Instapundit.
Scylla & Charybdis lead us to CBS CEO and Viacom Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer Les Moonves’ response [pdf] to the panel’s report. Moonves does not appear to hold back any contempt for the actions of the former CBS staffers.
There was, in short, no effective vetting of these critical documents by those at CBS News required to do so, or of many other statements in the September 8th report, or of the reports that followed on the CBS Evening News. Once again, the system broke down, relying on trust rather than the implementation of existing standards.
That, alone, is pretty damning for a news organization to have to admit.
After the jump: Recommendations from Moonves’ response.
Acting on the Panel’s recommendations, I would like to announce the following further steps that will be implemented immediately, not just for 60 Minutes Wednesday, but for all of CBS News.
Responding to perhaps the most important recommendation of the Panel, we will immediately create a position of Senior Vice President of Standards and Special Projects, reporting to the President of CBS News. This executive will be assigned expanded new duties as part of upholding and enforcing CBS News Standards. Before an investigative report proceeds, the Standards Executive will review the use of confidential sources; will determine the completeness of the authentication and/or chain of custody of materials received from outside sources, ranging from documents to video to photos; and will approve all hidden-camera investigations.
The Standards Executive will be identified throughout CBS News as someone with whom employees can communicate on a confidential basis, without fear of retaliation, if they have concerns that a planned segment may not meet CBS News standards of accuracy and fairness. This executive will also undertake a comprehensive review of the CBS News Standards Manual and will institute a program for regular review of the standards.
Assuming this important new role will be Linda Mason, who has been named Senior Vice President, Standards and Special Projects, reporting directly to the President of CBS News.
Linda has a long and distinguished career at CBS News, which she joined in 1966. She was the first woman in many of the positions she has filled at CBS News: from desk assistant in radio to writer in Newsfilm syndication, to writer/associate producer at WCBS-TV News to writer then producer at the CBS Morning News, to producer, investigative producer, senior producer at the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and then Dan Rather, to executive producer of The CBS Weekend News and then executive producer of CBS News Sunday Morning as well, to vice president of Public Affairs and executive producer of CBS Reports. She has won 13 Emmys, two 2 Peabodies, a Dupont and various other awards.
Linda has acted as the liaison between CBS NEWS and the Independent Panel during the preparation of the Panel’s report. She has been a calm, steadying influence within CBS News throughout that difficult process, and she was recognized for her contributions by the Panel. I know she will be invaluable in this new and crucial role, and I consider her appointment to be an integral part of the re-vitalization of CBS News after this difficult time.
Further, in the midst of this ordeal, the original 60 Minutes has continued to shine as a beacon of light. The broadcast has continued to blaze a trail of outstanding journalism and competitive success as the #1 news magazine program under the leadership of Executive Producer Jeff Fager, who launched 60 Minutes Wednesday in 1999. We have therefore asked Jeff to oversee both 60 Minutes broadcasts - 60 Minutes Wednesday as well as 60 Minutes - at least until the end of the season.
Other steps that will be implemented immediately include, but will not be limited to, the following:
1. If the validity of information presented in a segment comes under a significant challenge, such as occurred with the 60 Minutes Wednesday segment, reporting on the challenge will not be left entirely in the hands of those who created the segment at issue. Instead, an additional team, led by someone not involved in the original segment, will be assigned to take the lead in the coverage.
2. In sensitive stories relying on sources who cannot be identified on the air, senior management must, when appropriate, know not just the name of the source, but all relevant background that would assist in editorial news decisions. Difficulties in this regard should be reviewed with the Standards Executive.
3. CBS News management must make it clear to all personnel that competitive pressure alone cannot be allowed to prompt the airing of a story. As the Panel points out, it would have been better to “lose” the story on the disputed memos to a competitor than to air it short of vetting to the highest standards of fairness and accuracy.
4. Correspondents, producers and associate producers must disclose to the executive producer and senior producers all relevant information unearthed in reporting the story, both supporting and challenging the segment’s findings.
5. On primetime broadcasts, all on-camera interviews done for a segment, whether or not aired, should be reviewed by the person assigned script review responsibility to ensure that the segment presents fairly and accurately what was said in the interviews and is not contradicted by interviews which do not appear in the finished segment.
6. CBS NEWS producers and management will work closely with the CBS Communications area to ensure that all information provided to the department and then disseminated to the public is fair and accurate.
7. CBS NEWS management should require correspondents to regularly and fully participate to the maximum extent possible in the preparation, vetting and pre-broadcast screening of stories. Management should review instances where the press of other responsibilities does not permit this and make any appropriate changes to the production and vetting structure to take account of reality.
In addition to these steps, in the future we will pursue any other reforms we feel are needed to help CBS News uphold its decades-long tradition of reporting with integrity and without fear or favor.
