• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 11, 2005

Where are the real journalists on network TV who are ready to take a chance on fame, fortune, and, of course, failure?

I don't see many hands raised.

CBS News fired four staffers yesterday as a result of an independent panel's report regarding a "60 Minutes" story that focused on President Bush's Texas Air National Guard history that was found to be unfair and should not have aired.

The blame? CBS News' hunger to make its mark, to help lift its entire organization, especially its main news show, the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" out of its third place spot.

The result? Ratings have drifted lower since the incident last year and have found the newscast less appealing to advertisers, according to the Washington Post. This business angle of the story took much of a backseat as other publications focused on the journalistic snafus.

The New York Times noted that the highly regarded producer of the segment, Mary Mapes, was left to run somewhat loose on the President Bush story and that some staffers feared her more than CBS News president Andrew Heyward. Senior producers who she reported to did not do their job, according to an independent panel, in asking her to verify the documents in the story.

While many stories focused on why CBS News president Andrew Heyward was spared, only a few reports, such as Daily Variety, were able to pinpoint why: Mr. Heyward left explicit warnings to Senior Vice President Betsy West and "60 Minutes" executive producer Josh Howard prior to the segment's airing that they better be able to defend "every syllable" of the story and not to let an overeager production team "stampede us."

All these actions make sense for CBS News: But what impression does this leave young producers at the venerable news organization?

Should they do more careful stories? Perhaps they should do safe entertainment news stories that pump the ratings and bring on more advertisers?

Morale is at its lowest, according to The New York Times. Perhaps it's time for Dan Rather to give one of his sly pep talks; he should whisper the word "courage."