Spend an evening curled up with the "Report of the Independent Review Panel" and you're bound to take away some management lessons. That's what 224 pages of someone else's pain will do for you. The clichι question -- "could it happen here?" - flashes in your mind as you read. CBS had issues. But are they CBS's alone? Let's examine just a few and follow them up with challenges for newsroom leaders.
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The CBS Issue: Who really does what?
The report raises the tender topic of the correspondent's role in the development of a story. Are they researching, interviewing, editing - or simply narrating?
The report says, "The correspondents for '60 Minutes Wednesday' are ultimately responsible for the production of stories that air and are expected to exercise oversight over their producer teams. In practice, the degree of oversight exercised by correspondent varies, with some being very involved in their producers' work on a regular basis while others give great authority and freedom to their producers."
The report suggests the correspondents delegate authority because they have other duties (e.g. Charlie Rose has a PBS show, Dan Rather serves as Managing Editor on the "CBS Evening News").
Your Management Challenge: "Fronting"
This CBS issue speaks to a concern about anchors "fronting" stories produced by others, a phenomenon that can happen in local, as well as network, news organizations (recall Peter Arnett's role in CNN's flawed "Tailwind" story).
There is a distinct professional difference between a high-profile correspondent or anchor working closely with a team of producers to develop stories, and a situation in which producers do all the journalistic tasks and hand the finished product for the "talent" to introduce and narrate - that is, to "front."
"Fronting" happens for two primary reasons. The first is logistical: the anchor is a capable journalist but legitimately lacks the time to be fully involved in the field work. The second is performance-based: the anchor does not have the reporting skills or inclination to do the work. The former is a bad situation, the latter, though I believe it to be less common, is terrible.
I hope this case leads to meaningful discussions between news directors and staff about the dangers inherent in "fronting" stories. Are we giving those who are the "face" of the story time to play a meaningful role in its development?
According to the panel's report, Dan Rather did not attend any of the pre-air screenings of the story in question. The report says, "The panel feels that Rather's absence from the screening and vetting, and his regrettably limited participation in the segment's production, deprived it of valuable perspective."
Are we investing in capable producers and giving them time to adequately research stories? Are we being honest with viewers? Do we lead them to believe the person delivering the story is the person primarily responsible for the journalism behind it, when that might not be true?
This is a conversation not confined to broadcasting, by the way. Print journalists confronted the issue when celebrated New York Times reporter Rick Bragg left the paper in the wake of controversy about his use of interns and stringers on stories that carried his byline. |
The CBS Issue: Deference to High Performing StaffA clear thread in the panel's investigation was the amount of credibility the organization vested in award-winning producer Mary Mapes. The investigative panel found that "Mapes was considered by everyone at CBS News with whom the panel spoke as 'a superstar' reporter and producer, and some of her superiors said that they stood in awe of her work."
In his statement responding to the report, CBS CEO Les Moonves says, "The panel shows it was that record and level of trust that led those around Mapes to defer to her to a far greater extent than was warranted."
Your Management Challenge: Questioning Your Stars
The report reinforces the importance of the expression "trust but verify" in newsrooms.
In every organization, there are journalists who have distinguished themselves with a track record of excellent work. They report, edit, photograph, write, and produce with distinction. They may be well-known to the public as anchors or columnists. They may mentor other, less experienced colleagues.
Their competence gives you great confidence in them. You may then focus the majority of your attention on people whom you see as more needy -- your up-and-comers, your underperformers. You may get out of the habit of asking the normal "vetting" questions of your superstars. When you do, it may come as a surprise to them. They may take umbrage and see it as an attack on their integrity. It is a difficult conversation and you might be inclined to avoid the conflict. Who wants to alienate the best and brightest, right?
The temptation to trust superstars without questioning and verifying may be great. But this case proves the importance of leaders "prosecuting copy." Newsroom leaders must hold all employees, including high performers or "stars" at every level, accountable. Value the process AND the people. Make the conversation about ethical standards so common, and the practice of asking questions of everyone so routine, that it becomes a part of your culture. That means you should be open to questions, too.
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The CBS Issue: Lack of Expertise in a Key Area
The panel's report made it clear that the CBS production team had documents in its hands and no apparent expertise in how to verify their authenticity. The journalists were clueless about the field of document verification. They scrambled to find experts without apparently even knowing how experts become experts in the field, and without understanding the nuances of the specialty.
Your Management Challenge: Engaging Experts
This part of the CBS saga is a great reminder to newsgatherers: today there is someone out there who is completely versed in the topic you are covering, and that person is not only watching; he/she is wired.
That person is now part of an online community of other interested professionals. I'm not referring simply to politics here. I'm talking about anyone from locksmiths to window cleaners -- two examples I pulled from thin air and found instantly on the Web.
Time was, newsrooms were instantly fact-checked by a handful of groups, sometimes with a political point of view, sometimes simply hobbyists and aficionados. Gun owners, railroad buffs, retired English teachers ... we knew them fairly well.
Today, the Internet has brought countless communities of interest together. Some of them blog and some of them chat among themselves. They can connect with each other - and with us - using only a few keystrokes and the "send" button.
They are the citizen editors of our journalism.
We can't rush a story to print or air without extraordinary vetting. We can't do what CBS did and what the panel describes: fail to recognize the nuances of the field of document verification. That ignorance was at the heart of its flawed reporting.
You may have regular conversations in your newsroom about identifying experts, but what about discussions on how we deal with those "citizen editors" out there? Are they seen as cranks who fill your in-box with spam? Or are you finding ways to cultivate and catalogue these contacts, to build your inventory of experts? |
The CBS Issue: The Perception of Bias
The panel called the question of bias one of the most "subjective and difficult" they undertook as they examined the steps and missteps of reporting. In the end, they said, "The panel does not find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted, or aired the segment of having a political bias." Clearly, Mapes' phone call to Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign was an ethical transgression, but taken in total, the investigators could not find a pattern of bias.
Has the report persuaded those who believe CBS - and Dan Rather - are hopelessly biased? Probably not. Even the investigators noted that those folks "are likely to sweep such denials aside."
But nonetheless, the panel might have discovered it as they examined staff correspondence. Panel members Louis Boccardi and Dick Thornburgh sifted through e-mails sent among key people in the story, and the report presented nothing from those documents - other than perhaps the term "Bushies" -- that seemed to convey a politically biased mindset.
This must be a disappointment to those who hope to prove pervasive bias among journalists. After all, bias is a chronic condition. If a reporter or news organization can be depicted as biased, their work remains perpetually suspect. In this case, the report found a series of profound errors, not chronic bias.
Your Management Challenge: Do Your Informal Communications Reflect Your Values?
Think about your newsroom's e-mail exchanges or your offhand conversations about people and subjects you cover. What's the tone? Is there sniping? Smart ass comments? Non-stop cynicism?
Now think about someone examining those e-mails closely and publishing those findings for all to see. What impression might someone take away from that reading? Would this kind of transparency reveal the perception or reality of bias? Or might it broadcast your journalistic professionalism to even the most skeptical eye? You, as the leader, walk and talk your newsroom's values.
Better to be right than first - unless of course...
