ED FOUHY
A hidden hand
AT ITS BEST journalism is supposed to be a search for truth. As the scandal at CBS News has shown again, however, television network news organizations have for too long tolerated a system of deceptive reporting about who is the real author of the journalism that viewers see on their screens. The world is now aware that it was Mary Mapes, the CBS News producer, who found, wooed, and received documents from Bill Burkett, the former Texas National Guard officer who now cannot authenticate those documents. It was the anonymous Mapes, not the anchor star Dan Rather, who was the real journalist behind the Bush National Guard documents story. According to The
The situation in which CBS News now finds itself is not very different from earlier scandals at NBC, where a newsmagazine producer wired a truck to heighten a simulated gas tank explosion, or CNN, where a team of producers collaborated on "Tailwind," a story from the Vietnam War whose sources recanted after the broadcast. Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent, later said he had no role in reporting the story despite the fact that it was he who presented it on the air. He later left the network. Television is the only medium of journalism in which there is a hidden hand behind some of the journalism that reaches the screen. Network television, unfortunately, has not been straight with its audience. Oh, sure, there are a few programs that grudgingly put the story producer's name on the screen for a few seconds, notably the Sunday edition of "60 Minutes," long the gold standard for newsmagazine journalism. But how many viewers are aware that the producer whose name appears over Dan Rather's shoulder was, in all likelihood, the journalist who originated the story idea, researched and reported it, found and preinterviewed the sources who appear on camera, and may have thought up the questions the star correspondent asked in the on-camera interview seen by home viewers? Behind that practice is the firm if untested belief that the audience is so gullible that it believes on-camera news stars are able to do well-reported, well-produced stories, often investigative pieces involving hundreds of hours of tough reporting and digging, and still show up every week or every night looking tanned, rested, and well tailored. Economics is at the heart of the deception. Top correspondents have, for the last two decades, been able to command salaries that are more consistent with the compensation paid entertainers than the more modest salaries earned by most journalists, a generally underpaid lot. Corporate bosses who sign the stars' paychecks can be forgiven if they want their luminaries on screen as often as possible. News executives have done a poor job of explaining to their bosses that investigative journalism is tedious, exhausting work. So they hire aspiring journalists who are willing to work for less and won't demand on-screen credit. Most are first-rate professionals who labor tirelessly but anonymously. Network stars compound this deception by their willingness to play along, to take credit for the work behind the story they are fronting for. Who wouldn't enjoy the public acclaim, the adoring autograph seekers, the black tie awards dinners that attend the role of fearless journalist despite the fact the deception is known to their colleagues, if not to the public? But now that system has turned on Rather, a lightning rod for Republicans since the Nixon days. They won't be satisfied until he's gone, but his resignation would not cure the credibility problem created by this increasingly outdated system sure to come under more intense fire by the artillery of bloggers. CBS is about to undergo an agonizing examination of the circumstances that led to the worst scandal in its history. For the newly appointed investigating committee, former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press boss Louis D. Boccardi, finding the facts behind the Guard documents story probably won't be all that difficult if CBS redeems its promise to cooperate fully. But it will ultimately be far more important in terms of reestablishing CBS News's tattered credibility if they shine their light on the culture that tolerates misleading viewers and presents to the public news reporting by anonymous producers but on-air presentation by star correspondents. Television news viewers should hope that when Thornburgh and Boccardi finish their work they will recommend that this systematic deception be abolished and that CBS News comes clean with its viewers as to who is the real author -- and who is accountable -- for the journalism they see on their screens.
Ed Fouhy, a retired CBS News reporter, producer, and executive, lives in Chatham. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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