Monday, January 10, 2005
CBS Fires Four Executives
By Howard KurtzWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, January 10, 2005; 11:48 AM
An outside panel said today it had found "considerable and fundamental deficiencies" at CBS News in its reporting of a disputed story on President Bush's National Guard service, prompting the network to dump three top executives and Mary Mapes, Dan Rather's producer on the September story.
Rather has already announced that he plans to step down as anchor in March.
CBS President Leslie Moonves accepted the panel's findings, saying in a statement that "there were lapses every step of the way--in the reporting and the vetting of the segment and in the reaction of CBS News in the aftermath of the report." He also said that "Mapes presented half-truths as facts to those with whom she worked."
The highest-ranking person let go was Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervises CBS's prime-time programs. Also jettisoned were Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday," and his deputy, Mary Murphy. Left untouched was CBS News President Andrew Heyward, who approved the piece before it aired.
"We deeply regret the disservice this flawed 60 Minutes Wednesday report did to the American public, which has a right to count on CBS News for fairness and accuracy," Moonves said.
Moonves said in his statement that Rather "asked the right questions initially, but then made the same errors of credulity and over-enthusiasm that beset many of his colleagues. . . . He defended the story overzealously afterward. . . . The panel has found that his unwillingness to consider that CBS News and his colleagues were in the wrong was a mistake."
Since Rather is giving up the anchor chair, however, Moonves said further action "would not be appropriate."
The panel, headed by former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief executive Louis Boccardi, said it could not definitively prove that the 30-year-old memos said to have been written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's late squadron commander in the Texas Air National Guard, were bogus. But it said there had been a "failure" by CBS to authenticate any of the documents and that "60 Minutes" had aired the "false" statement that an expert had verified the documents when all he did was authenticate one signature on one document.
CBS also failed to interview the person who provided the suspect memos to its source, former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett, and never established Rather's claim that the papers "were taken from Colonel Killian's personal files."
Mapes's call to Joe Lockhart, then a senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, in which she asked him to speak with her source Burkett, was "a clear conflict of interest" that "created the appearance of a political bias," the report said.
The panel did not find, however, that those involved in the report on Bush had a political bias.
Taken together, the Thornburgh-Boccardi findings amount to a repudiation of the newsgathering process of CBS News and the midweek spinoff of one of its crown jewels, "60 Minutes." It also tarnished the reputation of Rather, the CBS News anchor since 1981, who would have faced considerable pressure to step down if he had not set a retirement date before the report was issued. Rather plans to continue as a correspondent for "60 Minutes."
The panel was equally tough on CBS's decision to doggedly defend the National Guard story for nearly two weeks after the authenticity of the documents came under fire.
The report assailed the "strident defense" made without "any adequate probing whether any of the questions raised had merit." CBS should not have allowed many of the same people involved in reporting the flawed Sept. 8 story to handle the follow-up pieces on the "CBS Evening News," some of which were "misleading," the report said.
CBS News also made "inaccurate press statements" that the then-secret source of the documents was "unimpeachable" and that numerous experts had vouched for their authenticity, the panel found. Instead, CBS aired stories to support the segment "instead of providing accurate and balanced coverage of a raging controversy."
Moonves reserved his harshest words for Mapes, saying that "her basic reporting was faulty and her responses when questioned led others who trusted her down the wrong road. Her confidential source was not reliable and her authenticators were unable to authenticate the documents, yet she maintained the opposite."
Mapes's accounts in some cases are "radically different" from those of her sources and colleagues, Moonves said.
Moonves named CBS executive Linda Mason to the newly created post of senior vice president for standards and special projects
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
'
By Howard KurtzWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, January 10, 2005; 11:48 AM
An outside panel said today it had found "considerable and fundamental deficiencies" at CBS News in its reporting of a disputed story on President Bush's National Guard service, prompting the network to dump three top executives and Mary Mapes, Dan Rather's producer on the September story.
Rather has already announced that he plans to step down as anchor in March.
CBS President Leslie Moonves accepted the panel's findings, saying in a statement that "there were lapses every step of the way--in the reporting and the vetting of the segment and in the reaction of CBS News in the aftermath of the report." He also said that "Mapes presented half-truths as facts to those with whom she worked."
The highest-ranking person let go was Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervises CBS's prime-time programs. Also jettisoned were Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday," and his deputy, Mary Murphy. Left untouched was CBS News President Andrew Heyward, who approved the piece before it aired.
"We deeply regret the disservice this flawed 60 Minutes Wednesday report did to the American public, which has a right to count on CBS News for fairness and accuracy," Moonves said.
Moonves said in his statement that Rather "asked the right questions initially, but then made the same errors of credulity and over-enthusiasm that beset many of his colleagues. . . . He defended the story overzealously afterward. . . . The panel has found that his unwillingness to consider that CBS News and his colleagues were in the wrong was a mistake."
Since Rather is giving up the anchor chair, however, Moonves said further action "would not be appropriate."
The panel, headed by former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief executive Louis Boccardi, said it could not definitively prove that the 30-year-old memos said to have been written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's late squadron commander in the Texas Air National Guard, were bogus. But it said there had been a "failure" by CBS to authenticate any of the documents and that "60 Minutes" had aired the "false" statement that an expert had verified the documents when all he did was authenticate one signature on one document.
CBS also failed to interview the person who provided the suspect memos to its source, former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett, and never established Rather's claim that the papers "were taken from Colonel Killian's personal files."
Mapes's call to Joe Lockhart, then a senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, in which she asked him to speak with her source Burkett, was "a clear conflict of interest" that "created the appearance of a political bias," the report said.
The panel did not find, however, that those involved in the report on Bush had a political bias.
Taken together, the Thornburgh-Boccardi findings amount to a repudiation of the newsgathering process of CBS News and the midweek spinoff of one of its crown jewels, "60 Minutes." It also tarnished the reputation of Rather, the CBS News anchor since 1981, who would have faced considerable pressure to step down if he had not set a retirement date before the report was issued. Rather plans to continue as a correspondent for "60 Minutes."
The panel was equally tough on CBS's decision to doggedly defend the National Guard story for nearly two weeks after the authenticity of the documents came under fire.
The report assailed the "strident defense" made without "any adequate probing whether any of the questions raised had merit." CBS should not have allowed many of the same people involved in reporting the flawed Sept. 8 story to handle the follow-up pieces on the "CBS Evening News," some of which were "misleading," the report said.
CBS News also made "inaccurate press statements" that the then-secret source of the documents was "unimpeachable" and that numerous experts had vouched for their authenticity, the panel found. Instead, CBS aired stories to support the segment "instead of providing accurate and balanced coverage of a raging controversy."
Moonves reserved his harshest words for Mapes, saying that "her basic reporting was faulty and her responses when questioned led others who trusted her down the wrong road. Her confidential source was not reliable and her authenticators were unable to authenticate the documents, yet she maintained the opposite."
Mapes's accounts in some cases are "radically different" from those of her sources and colleagues, Moonves said.
Moonves named CBS executive Linda Mason to the newly created post of senior vice president for standards and special projects
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
'
