CBS is going to really make their "eye" black if they keep this up.
Report on CBS memo likely to be delayed
What comes after Rather still up in air
The media mix By Peter Johnson - USA Today
CBS executives, eager to put “Memogate” behind them, had hoped an independent panel looking into the scandal would issue a report this month. Now it appears the panel might wait until January.
CBS News staffers were still being interviewed last week by lawyers for the panel. Coupled with the approaching holidays, the report's release before New Year's has become increasingly unlikely.
The panel is looking into what went wrong in the reporting of the controversial 60 Minutes story last fall in which Dan Rather used suspect memos to question President Bush's National Guard service. Rather apologized for airing the story, but public anger over it prompted CBS to appoint the panel.
Meanwhile, as Rather's retirement March 9 from The CBS Evening News approaches (he'll move full time to 60 Minutes), CBS executives are discussing what the style and format of the nightly broadcast should look like.
Executives aren't in any rush to name Rather's permanent replacement, either now or when he steps down. Bob Schieffer, host of CBS' Face the Nation, could be tapped to anchor during an interim period.
As network dominance slips in the face of cable and the Internet, CBS chief Leslie Mooves has said everything's on the table when it comes to rethinking evening news.
Although a two-anchor format famously bombed with Rather and Connie Chung in the '90s, executives find a multi-anchor format — standard on morning shows — increasingly intriguing. That could mean interest in oft-mentioned candidates to replace Rather solo — CBS White House correspondent John Roberts and 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley — could be waning.
Joe Angotti, a former NBC News executive who teaches journalism at Northwestern, likes the idea of CBS “throwing out the old anchor mold altogether and developing an anchor team of four men and women. Any two would anchor each night while the other two were out covering major stories.”
But Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University, says CBS should go for star power and tap ABC anchor Diane Sawyer, who was once a 60 Minutes correspondent. “Make her an offer she can't refuse. She has both credentials and charisma and is the only choice who could draw viewers from (ABC's Peter) Jennings and (NBC's Brian) Williams.” ABC says Sawyer has made “long-term commitments.” Janensch suggests, “Pay off her contract with ABC.”
James Rada, a journalism professor at Howard University, says CBS should involve viewers more. A daily segment, he says, would “provide the opportunity for the public to submit follow-up questions via e-mail or fax. These questions could be answered by the source, or expert, if they are live. Or they could be followed up on the next night's newscast, or posted on the network's Web site.”
“We receive our news through a very narrow filter which often leaves the viewers with more questions than answers,” Rada says. Networks “must move to incorporate those media with which the younger generation is accustomed to communicating.”
Along those lines, Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor, says CBS should conduct a nationwide listening tour — “a one-of-a-kind, creative act of public listening to Americans' views about broadcast news. Lots of views, lots of time to hear all sides of the problem. How would it harm CBS?”
Former NBC News chief Reuven Frank says CBS should consider moving the broadcastto prime time, to reflect today's America in which parents often work late and “families have to make a big effort to eat around the same table.”
But Frank says that expanding The News to an hour — an idea that has been floated over the years — would mean “30 minutes filled with ‘live' interviewing, analyzing and shouting, just like cable. It might steal away cable news's audience, but wouldn't get any other.”
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