CBS’ LIBEL SUITS ARE GONE--BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

Two much-publicized libel suits against CBS News are history now, but they still underscore that “our work is constantly subject to . . . sometimes hostile scrutiny,” CBS’ top news executive said Wednesday.

But the goal of “accurate and fair journalism” remains “our basic mission,” said Van Gordon Sauter, an executive vice president of the CBS Broadcast Group, who until September, 1983, was president of CBS News.

Sauter, speaking on the last day of the annual CBS affiliates convention here, began his address by noting that when the same group of station and network executives met here three years ago this month, a TV Guide article had just labeled a CBS documentary a “smear” of Gen. William C. Westmoreland.

The documentary about Vietnam, aired in January, 1982, led to the general’s $120-million libel suit against CBS, which Westmoreland eventually dropped after more than four months of trial testimony in New York.

Sauter also noted that two years ago, when the affiliates were meeting in Los Angeles, Dr. Carl Galloway’s libel suit against Dan Rather and “60 Minutes” was under way there at the same time. CBS was vindicated in that suit.

“These matters, successfully concluded, are behind us--but not forgotten,” the bearded network executive told an audience of 700 station officials at the Masonic Auditorium here.

Sauter disputed what he called the belief of some of his colleagues that “journalism today is under a state of siege.” He called that “overstated.”

However, he said that while he feels that network and local journalism enjoy “a large repository of respect and good will,” all that “can be transitory.”

“It will be quickly withdrawn if we abuse the power of our medium, if we abuse those we cover, if we abuse the intelligence of our audience,” Sauter said.

His call for fair and accurate journalism, coming at a time when CBS News is under heavy criticism by conservatives for an alleged liberal bias, which CBS denies, was echoed by Ed Joyce, Sauter’s successor as president of CBS News.

Joyce said that one recent poll concluded that CBS News was too liberal, while another called it too conservative. He didn’t identify the organizations that conducted the polls.

But he asserted that “we at CBS News are relentlessly self-critical. Regardless of what outside pressures are brought to bear, we will continue to be so. . . .”

And, he said, those in charge of CBS News broadcasts ask every day whether those broadcasts are fair, accurate and balanced.

They want them to be that, he said, emphasizing that “today, as always, I can assure you that this organization will continue to steer a professional, honest course.”

The two executives’ remarks were immediately followed by a jazzy, almost Broadway-like production in which clips of CBS News stars at work in their particular programs were shown. Then each appeared on stage, seated in executive chairs, briefly discussing his or her programs.

Included were Mike Wallace, a “60 Minutes” regular and a co-defendant in the Westmoreland-CBS case; Bill Kurtis and Phyllis George, co-anchors of the third-rated “CBS Morning News”; “Nightwatch” anchor Charlie Rose; Andrew Lack, executive producer of CBS News’ new “West 57th St.” news magazine, which premieres in August, and, of course, “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather, who sat at a small mockup of his “Evening News” program’s set, flanked by the others.

Rather, who has anchored his evening newscast from San Francisco during the convention, reinforced in a brief speech what Joyce and Sauter had said earlier.

CBS News, he said, sets the “industry standard for . . . fair, accurate reporting.”

Indirectly alluding to criticism by conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and others that there is a liberal bias to CBS News reports, Rather said, “There is a lot of loose talk . . . about bias, real and imagined.”

However, he said, “Dan Rather’s main, true bias is that he believes in honest, straight reporting, and he believes in his country.”

Each film clip segment included loud, lively music that ranged from french horns for shots of Rather’s show to a sort of big-band rock for “West 57th St.” The 30-minute presentation concluded with a catchy new full-orchestra jingle in which vocalists sang that CBS “keeps America on top of the world.”

At the end of all this, the CBS journalists stood up and applauded the audience, which in turn stood up and applauded them.

And then, in the best Broadway tradition, George bent down to shake the hands of those clustering up to the stage and was later joined by her CBS colleagues.

Kurtis said nothing during his appearance about speculation that he longs to leave the “Morning News” show, which he has anchored since March, 1982, and return to Chicago, where he previously was an anchorman on CBS-owned WBBM-TV.

Network sources say that an announcement on Kurtis’ future with the “Morning News” is expected in June, but that regardless of what happens, he will remain with CBS News until at least next March, when his current contract expires.