CNN's New Chief Defended CBS on Forgery
Charge, Aided Gumbel
Jonathan Klein, named President of CNN/U.S. on Monday, in September on FNC praised Mary Mapes, the producer of the CBS story which used forged documents in a political hit against President Bush, as "absolutely peerless, I'd say, in the profession. She is a crack journalist," insisted that 60 Minutes, which it turned out got the forgeries from a well-known Bush-hater, is "probably the most careful news organization, certainly on television when it comes to the vetting sources" and denigrated bloggers who uncovered CBS's misdeed as he ludicrously defended CBS's standards: "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks."
In 1996-98 Klein served as Executive Vice President of CBS News and in February of 1998 took over as Executive Producer of the failing Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel prime time show a month before Gumbel lashed out at Kathleen Willey and Linda Tripp for daring to take on President Clinton. On March 17, 1998, Gumbel highlighted how "an attorney who is suing Willey levels troubling charges that she may have falsified her account of her meeting with the President." Gumbel also derided Tripp as "a Clinton-basher who seems to be at every ugly turn in this controversy." Gumbel asked a left-wing journalist, Jane Mayer, who had written a derogatory profile of Tripp: "You write that co-workers often viewed her as an inveterate busybody. Has she always been a snoop and a gossip with a particular interest in other people's romantic lives?" See: www.mediaresearch.org
After leaving CBS News, Klein founded FeedRoom.com, a streaming video service.
With its hiring of Klein, CNN, which has a prime time line-up that is falling further behind FNC, continued its musical chairs of top executives. The AP noted on Monday: "When he moves into his new New York office next month, Klein will become the eighth executive to hold one of the top two slots at CNN since Fox News began in 1996. During that time, Roger Ailes has remained as Fox's unquestioned boss." For the AP story in full: news.yahoo.com
For a picture of Klein: story.news.yahoo.com
The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes pointed out on Tuesday: "Holding down one of the top jobs at CNN has been kind of like being a contestant on The Apprentice pretty much since the competing Fox News Channel hit the scene in the late 1990s. Eight different suits have warmed the top two seats at CNN since then -- five of them in this job alone: Rick Kaplan, Sid Bedingfield, Teya Ryan, [Princell] Hair and now Klein." For the entirety of the November 23 Post story, with a photo of Klein: www.washingtonpost.com
In Tuesday's New York Times, Bill Carter observed: "Mr. Hair, who was given another position at the network yesterday, had been in the job only since September 2003. The top job at the domestic network has turned over five times since 2000 and the job of heading all of CNN has changed hands three times in that span." For Carter's article in full, with a picture of Klein: www.nytimes.com
Two nights after the September 8 CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes used the forged memos in the hit job on Bush's National Guard service, Klein came aboard the Friday, September 10 O'Reilly Factor on FNC, hosted by Tony Snow, to defend CBS News. He appeared in-studio in New York City. Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard, who had just written an article about how document experts suspected a fraud, checked in via satellite from Washington, DC.
The relevant portion of the session:
Jonathan Klein: "I have a lot of faith in the producer of this segment only because I worked with her for a long time. And she is absolutely peerless, I'd say, in the profession. She is a crack journalist. And in this case, she's the same producer who broke the Abu Ghraib story. And at the time, there was a big flurry of, you know, a lot of attempts to discredit that story. And it turned out to be even bigger than the story they originally broke. But in this case, she's worked on this story for four years. I mean, this is a multiple Emmy winning producer-"
Tony Snow: "But if you've worked on this for four years, you're thinking, you know, I've got something here. And if you worked for four years, you're going to want to make it work. Again, in talking to Gary Killian -- one of the things he said in this conversation with her is I've got the names of some people who can directly contradict this, who have worked with my father. They were his superiors. They knew the President. And she said I don't know, you know, I've got to find out if they're Bush supporters. Again, is that the kind of question you'd really ask when you're doing something like this?"
Klein: "Oh, it speaks to the care that they take to validate sources of all kinds. They're not going to just throw somebody on the air just because they say something. It's a real integral part of the 60 Minutes process. They are probably the most careful news organization, certainly on television when it comes to the vetting sources."
Snow: "But they put Ben Barnes on the air. And he's working for John Kerry."
Klein: "But they disclose things. You know, they disclose stuff like that. And they vet people's veracity. And they have multiple checks and balances in the process to make sure that not too much slips by. Now they're human. They could make mistakes, but it's not going to be by forgetting to call the sources that the [unintelligible] gave them."
Snow: "Because the point on CBS -- 60 Minutes got burned by a forged document case in the late 1990's and ended up having to pay some money for it. It was the border patrol."
Klein: "Well, their track record over 35 years is just about pristine. They have the best record of just about anybody."
Snow: "Steve, one of the interesting developments here is that this story has come to light in part because of people like you writing online for The Weekly Standard, a series of Web logs, including PowerLine and others, which seem to be driving the story. Talk a little bit about the role of new journalism in this."
Hayes: "Well, I think it's an important moment. You know, it remains to be seen whether these things are forgeries. Certainly there are many, many, many valid questions that have been raised by document authentication experts. But the people who really called this to light are these Web loggers, who you know, basically said some of this doesn't smell right. I want to raise these questions in a public way and let the people who really know how to deal with these issues answer the questions. I think that's what they did and they-"
Klein, cut in over Hayes: "In contrast to 60 Minutes, bloggers have no checks and balances and you couldn't, I agree, it's an important moment because you couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing what he thinks."
Reminds me of what Aaron Brown does most nights.
The night Klein defended CBS and disparaged bloggers, Dan Rather remained in full denial. As recounted in the Saturday, September 11 CyberAlert:
Dan Rather, on Friday's CBS Evening News, spent nearly six minutes defending his Wednesday 60 Minutes story which used 32-year-old memos to impugn President Bush, documents which have come under wide suspicion of being forgeries. But instead of addressing those concerns, Rather stonewalled as he employed loaded language to reiterate the charges about supposed Bush misdeeds and put them in the worst possible light, denigrated his critics as "partisan political operatives" even though many mainstream media outlets have featured experts who concluded the memos are fakes, including NBC News and CNN, distorted the issue of whether typewriters could do superscript in 1972, discounted the charge that the font used wasn't available on typewriters in the early 1970s by making the irrelevant point that the font was invented in 1931, ignored other font/spacing/kerning issues which have led experts to decide the memos are fakes, and he concluded by having a Bush-bashing author assert the White House was letting the "blogosphere" undermine charges they know are true. See: www.mediaresearch.org
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