CBS Fires Its Controversial Campaign Coverage Producer

CBS News, where turmoil has become almost routine, has bounced Richard M. Cohen as its campaign coverage producer and says he is leaving the network after he rejected other assignments offered him.

Network officials declined to comment Tuesday on why Cohen, who had been at CBS News since 1979, got the ax. He will be succeeded by Brian M. Healy, who has been the Washington senior producer for “CBS Evening News” since 1982.

One source close to the situation blamed “disagreements with management” that Cohen has had in recent months, including a Super Tuesday rehearsal two weeks ago in which he reportedly became too aggressive in playing the roles of potential election-night interviewees with anchorman Dan Rather.

Cohen, who was not immediately available for comment, also got in hot water last month after helping arrange Rather’s controversial, combative live interview with Vice President George Bush on the “CBS Evening News.”

Several days after the incident, Cohen, in an interview with the Des Moines Register, said that Rather had made “mistakes” in the Bush encounter, and said he thought that “it was very damaging to us, to Dan, to our credibility.”

Prior to that, Cohen wrote an Op-Ed article in the New York Times, urging journalists to leave South Africa rather than submit to that nation’s rigid press restrictions.

Cohen is married to CBS News correspondent Meredith Vieira, a regular on the network’s “West 57th” program.

CBS News announced his exit Monday night in a terse statement that said Cohen had been “removed from the political unit” and had been offered “several reassignments” because of “his many producer skills.”

Cohen had declined all the offers, the statement said, and “as a result, a release (for him) is being negotiated from the terms of his contract.”

Healy, his successor, is a 16-year veteran of CBS News. He will oversee campaign coverage from Washington, CBS said.