CBS's culture of liberals
Paul Chesser:
Paul Chesser:
...A culture question for CBS News--How many employees of CBS News voted for President Bush?
The first indication of Mr. Heyward's culpability showed up on Sept. 7, when he asked Ms. West "to become more deeply involved," according to the independent panel's report. Former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press Chief Executive Louis Boccardi, the report's co-authors, said the unusual move with Miss West "evidenced [Mr. Heyward's] recognition that this was an important and potentially controversial story."
Further confirmation Mr. Heyward knew what was to come was revealed in an e-mail to Miss West and Mr. Howard that day, cautioning the two not to be "stampede•" and that "we're going to have to defend every syllable of this one." What does this imply? That Mr. Heyward was mindful a "stampede" from Miss Mapes was a possibility, if not a certainty.
Mr. Heyward also appeared to distinguish this story from others, seemingly placing a higher threshold of veracity upon it ("every syllable"). Why?
Was Miss Mapes a purveyor of earlier questionable stories CBS didn't feel compelled to defend as vigorously? Or did Mr. Heyward realize immediately he was dealing with shaky evidence?
The latter is probably the case. According to the panel report, "West typically did not get involved in the vetting process until the story was ready for a final screening." On this story, Mr. Heyward required her to participate throughout the last two days of the process, vetting scripts and screenings.
Even though Mr. Heyward considered Miss Mapes capable of a "stampede" to get her story aired, everyone took her at her word about her sources.
Problems existed in the verification of the chain of possession of the falsified documents, yet CBS employees designated to vet Miss Mapes' sources didn't pursue their own independent corroboration. Even Miss Mapes herself couldn't confirm the original source of the documents given to her by Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, an anti-Bush activist.
"It appears to the panel that a crash to air the story was under way without effective consideration of the chain of custody," Mr. Thornburgh and Mr. Boccardi wrote.
Two days after the Bush story aired, Mr. Heyward, "concerned about mainstream media's increasingly critical reporting about the segment," told Miss West to investigate the document examiners' opinions and the confidential sources for the story.
"Don't we have to come up with or share more evidence rather than just 'stand by' our statement?" he asked Miss West in an e-mail.
However, this instruction was not carried out, and indeed Miss West told another executive producer at CBS, "We're working on a statement to strongly deny the idea that we're... conducting an internal investigation."
CBS continued defending its Bush/TexANG story for another 10 days. That subordinates showed such disdain for Mr. Heyward's orders, when the organization was under fire, further demonstrates the problems with the "culture" at CBS.
It appears Mr. Heyward was of two minds during the post- Sept. 8 turmoil surrounding the CBS report. While he wanted to defend his employees, he clearly had doubts — from the very beginning — about the material they reported.
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