Soccer Dad

Rememberances of conflicts past

Four and a half years ago, Leslie Stahl appeared on 60 minutes explaining how she had failed to mention that Viacom, the parent company of CBS, had a book deal with Bush critic, Richard Clarke, the previous week when she had interviewed Clarke about his book. The interview raised some questions as Captain's Quarter's noted at the time:

CBS News has apparently decided to publish anything by anyone with a grudge against George Bush, and part of their marketing is to hijack the reputation of the news organization that Edward R. Murrow built in order to push their political agenda. Laura Ingraham wondered on her show today why Lesley Stahl tossed Clarke softball after softball during the interview, and now we know why.

CBS News President Andrew Heyward needs to address this financial conflict of interest immediately if CBS News wishes to retain any credibility whatsoever. Heads need to roll over this, beginning with the person who greenlighted the interview. Until CBS comes clean, we will know that CBS News whores out for Viacom, and Andrew Heyward is apparently its pimp.

Bryan Preston and Chris Regan took apart Stahl's "admission:"

A week went by before CBS's conflicted interest landed in the press. On the March 28 program, Stahl tried to wave away the omission as an "oversight." She explained that when she and her producers approached Clarke "months ago" he did not yet have a book deal, so the CBS crew had no way of knowing that the conflict of interest would arise. That answer is constructed to deceive: Stahl never mentioned when the interview itself was conducted or the fact that it's possible to edit video packages right up until airtime. The "months ago" formulation is meant to fool viewers into believing that, once initiated, the process of interview-to-air precludes any opportunity to change, add, or delete relevant material -- which is bogus. Put another way, is 60 Minutes, long known for having some of the best television editorial talent in the business, really not nimble enough to add new material to news packages after the initial point of contact?

Stahl's not-quite apology didn't quite say that the vaguely timed courtship included both the interview and a book-deal offer, but she didn't quite deny it either. And why be so vague? Just tell us when CBS first approached Clarke, and what sort of deal was offered. We need dates and figures, please. The date of the actual interview would be nice, too. Given the Viacom syndicate's recent tactics, it is reasonable to conclude that Clarke is just the latest newsmaker to get a fistful from the 60 Minutes cash register via CBS's corporate sibling, Simon & Schuster.

It must also be just a coincidence that the book's original April 27 publication date got fast forwarded to coincide with Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 Commission, testimony that contradicts many of Clarke's statements over the past two years but seems tailor made to do maximum political damage to the president in an election year -- thereby creating a deafening buzz about the book. (That buzz has so far helped 130,000 copies of Clarke's book fly off the shelves, incidentally.) None of this could have been timed and engineered to create yet another perfect multimedia storm, could it?

With that background in mind what are to think of Gwen Ifill's book deal and her ability to handle the debate tonight?

Jennifer Rubin sees a positive in this:

While I agree that this is an ethics debacle for her I think it is a godsend for Sarah Palin. What better way to ensure hyper-attention to fairness and to keep the moderator on the straight and narrow? And should Ifill stray and convey her obvious affection for Obama's candidacy, the McCain camp will of course scream bloody murder. Now the latter is becoming an everyday occurrence, but the prospect of undergoing a debate moderated by someone with an obvious ideological and financial interest in the success of one ticket really is grounds for complaint.

And Instapundit makes an excellent point here:

On the other hand, if, say, John Stossel or Bill O'Reilly were the moderator, I suspect that we'd be getting a lot of squawking from the same journalistic "watchdog" types who think there's no problem with Gwen Ifill. And that double standard -- and the departure from the neutrality ideal that it exemplifies -- is a bigger problem than any conflict of interest on Ifill's part. While a debate moderator isn't practicing journalism while moderating a debate, those who report on these matters are a different kettle of fish, and it's a kettle that's starting to smell kinda bad .

Read to the end as his last line is amazingly snarky and, sadly, on target.

More at memeorandum.

Michelle Malkin shows Gwen Ifill to be in violation of PBS's standards.

In the end, what's going to matter for the campaign is how Gov. Palin handles the debate, bias or not.