|
CBS News counters bloggers with 'Nonbudsman'
After a controversial run-in with bloggers last year that helped sink "60 Minutes Wednesday," CBS has hired a "nonbudsman" to write a blog that will go behind the scenes at the news division.Former "Hotline" editor Vaughn Ververs will report his findings on "Public Eye," which debuts next month. Ververs will be a kind of media reporter, mostly focused on CBS News, reporting and writing about how the news is gathered, produced and placed. In addition to providing Journalism 101, "Public Eye" also could offer extended versions of segments that appeared on CBS, interviews with correspondents and producers and maybe even the daily story meeting for the "CBS Evening News." "This is a way to open up the process (of network news)," Ververs said. Although he's a CBS employee, Ververs doesn't answer to CBS News president Andrew Heyward. His boss is CBS Digital Media head Larry Kramer, who has a long career in journalism. Ververs has no power to change policy or the direction of stories. "I'm not here to set the rules," Ververs said. "I'm not even here to voice my opinion. That's not my job." Heyward, who coined the term "nonbudsman," makes it clear that he's not looking for someone to just pat CBS News on the back. "It's going to be an honest, fair, unvarnished look at what we do, and that means that it's an experiment," Heyward said. "It's a risk. Not everybody approves of what we do. But I'm banking on the fact that people will also see how much effort we make about being fair and being ethical..." Of course it's nothing more than a poor effort to whitewash their soiled image, and give them a 24/7 way of putting out spin in the face of their next disaster. And they will crank out spin in nauseating volume. Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-30 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=128159 |