Hell no, they won't go
The New York Observer has posted Joe Hagan's article on the CBS three who decline to go gently into that good night: "The CBS three won't slink off; hiring lawyers." It seems to me that the heart of the story here picks up on the holes left in the panel report's blistering account of the 12-days of stonewall that we wrote about in "Rathergate: The cover-up." We wrote:
The report is more or less mysteriously silent on the inquiries, participation, knowledge or involvement of top CBS management including CBS News President Andrew Heyward and CBS President Les Moonves during the twelve-day cover-up. "Shortly" after Rather's on-camera interview of Burkett on September 18, the report (page 202) states, "Heyward determined that CBS News would issue an apology for the September 8 Segment on Monday, September 20 on the CBS Evening News."Today Hagan reports:
In the event of a lawsuit, Mr. Howard has told associates that he would like to see Mr. Moonves and [CBS executive vice president of communications Gil] Schwartz put under oath to talk about their own roles in the network’s stubborn, hapless defense of the flawed segment on President Bush’s National Guard service.Hagan's story includes a response from an unnamed senior CBS official: who characterizes Howard's claims as "dubious":Mr. Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he would subpoena specific CBS documents, including the e-mails of top executives. That might shed further light on what members of management were saying to each other on Friday, Sept. 10, two days after the segment aired—a day that Mr. Heyward and Mr. Schwartz were making important decisions about CBS’s defense strategy.
That was also when Mr. Howard’s leadership role, judging by CBS’s own account, stopped being so important. The network held Mr. Howard, as executive producer, responsible for airing the flawed segment. But it apparently ignored him when he asked management to reconsider the strategy of categorical denial that led to 12 days of stonewalling.
On page 162, the report says that it was Mr. Howard who made the first concerted effort to address the possibility that the segment had been in error: At 4 :53 a.m., he sent Ms. West an e-mail recommending that CBS News acknowledge the possibility that it had been duped and that the documents could be a hoax.
That request was ignored by Ms. West, who ceded responsibility to Mr. Heyward—who apparently ceded responsibility to the network’s public-relations man, Mr. Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz reports directly to Mr. Moonves and is responsible for penning his press releases (including, presumably, the Jan. 10 statement with which Mr. Howard takes issue).
Mr. Howard told the panel that later that day, further evidence offered by a typewriting specialist had been an "‘unsettling event’ that shook his belief in the authenticity of the documents." According to the report, both Ms. West and Mr. Heyward ignored his concerns and, in league with Mr. Moonves’ communications director, continued to defend the documents.
"Except for one inconclusive conversation regarding a single typewriter analyst, there was nothing in the panel’s report to indicate that Mr. Howard had raised any substantive issues with Mr. Heyward," the source said. "In fact, there were many conference calls and e-mails flying back and forth during those days. Mr. Howard had many other opportunities to express reservations that he might have had, and did not—a fact that is pointed out in many instances in the report, whose findings are generally critical, rather than exculpatory, of Mr. Howard."(Courtesy of RatherBiased.)Finally, the source said, the report—from which CBS management drew all of its conclusions—was an exhaustive, independent account that CBS felt responsible to act upon. The CBS official found Mr. Howard’s claims of innocence dubious.
"Mr. Howard’s so-called ‘expressions of doubt’ gain in force and volume as the story is retold from his vantage point," the source said.
