CBS Tackles 1 Scandal, Is Fined for a 2nd

Less than an hour after CBS named an independent panel Wednesday to probe the scandal over its flawed “60 Minutes” reporting, the Federal Communications Commission hit the network with the largest fine in its history over its infamous Super Bowl halftime broadcast.

As home to two explosive media controversies this year, the nation’s most watched network has found itself fighting image battles on multiple fronts -- and in the same week that CBS scored its poorest Emmy awards showing since 1954.

Compounding CBS’ troubles has been the network’s tendency to dig in its heels and deny there was a problem when questions arose, media observers said. Unlike some of its competitors, they said, CBS has been slow to resolve controversies.

Network officials initially dismissed criticism of the “60 Minutes” piece about President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, for example, and didn’t issue an apology until 12 days after the Sept. 8 broadcast.

They reacted similarly to the political furor over CBS’ “The Reagans” movie project last October. Conservatives were incensed over early glimpses of the not-so-flattering portrayal of former President Reagan and wife, Nancy, and the network eventually dropped plans to broadcast the movie, shunting it to Showtime, a cable subsidiary.

The network did, however, apologize promptly in the wake of the Janet Jackson breast-baring incident during the Feb. 1 Super Bowl halftime broadcast. The FCC, nonetheless, fined the network $550,000.

“We all make mistakes,” said Dee Davis, president of the Whitesburg, Ky.-based Center for Rural Studies, which criticized CBS over its planned reality show called the “Real Beverly Hillbillies.” “The real danger comes when you can’t admit it,” he added.

The two-man panel appointed by CBS to probe the “60 Minutes” broadcast is comprised of former Republican U.S. Atty. Gen. Richard Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi, former president and chief executive of Associated Press.

The network said in a statement that it would investigate how the National Guard story got on the air. The Sept. 8 broadcast featured unverifiable documents purportedly written by Bush’s commander; the material was provided by a former Guard official who lied to the network about where he obtained them.

Thornburgh and Boccardi will also review the actions of producer Mary Mapes, who put her chief source on the story in contact with a senior advisor to Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry before the story was aired. The panel’s findings will be made public.

CBS officials apologized this week for broadcasting the story, which alleged that Bush had received preferential treatment while in the Texas Air National Guard, and had violated military procedures. The story, which was delivered by “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather, has become a hot issue in the 2004 presidential race.

Thornburgh’s appointment to the panel raised some eyebrows in media circles because, in addition to serving under Reagan, he served President George H.W. Bush, with whom Rather had a heated on-air run-in in 1988, when Bush was vice president. Rather’s grilling of Bush is one of the key elements cited by those who have charged over the years that Rather and CBS News have a liberal bias.

A CBS News spokeswoman declined to comment on how the panel was appointed. And CBS News President Andrew Heyward, who selected the panel along with CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves, wasn’t available.

One network executive said Thornburgh, a former governor of Pennsylvania, was chosen because of his extensive investigative experience, noting that he is widely respected on both sides of the political aisle. The two were also chosen because they had no connection to CBS, the executive added.

Thornburgh works as counsel in the Washington law offices of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, which will also assist in the investigation. His assistant said he wasn’t giving any interviews.

Boccardi could not be reached for comment.

Heyward said in a Monday interview that he wanted the panel’s results within “weeks, not months,” but CBS executives have also insisted that they don’t want to do anything precipitous.

One complicating factor is the upcoming election, less than six weeks away. Rather is scheduled to anchor the network’s coverage on election day, but that could prove awkward for CBS News if he was criticized by the panel’s findings just before the high-profile night.

News division officials put a positive spin on Wednesday’s announcement of the investigating panel, stressing their desire to get the full story out and put the embarrassing disclosures behind them. But the network was decidedly cool in reacting to the FCC decision, vowing to consider all of its options, including an appeal of the $550,000 fine.

“While we regret that the incident occurred and have apologized to our viewers, we continue to believe that nothing in the Super Bowl broadcast violated indecency laws,” CBS said in a statement. “Furthermore, our investigation proved that no one in our company had any advance knowledge about the incident.”

The FCC said the fine, sparked by the Jackson incident, represents a $27,500 fine for each of 20 Viacom subsidiaries for “apparently willfully broadcasting indecent material.”

The show drew an unprecedented 542,000 complaints after singer Justin Timberlake ripped Jackson’s top during a halftime performance.

“The mood at CBS the past few days has been very dark, and I’m sure it’s getting worse,” said Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor.

In truth, however, the bad news had been worsening at CBS News for some time: The network’s fabled news division, once considered the gold standard of American TV reporting, has been floundering in the evening news ratings, running third behind ABC and NBC since 1995. The fate of Rather is unclear, given his involvement in the National Guard report, and there is no clear successor in line to replace him on the evening news.

Other observers wonder when -- or if -- the burgeoning political scandal over the “60 Minutes” report on Bush will begin to hurt the network with national advertisers.

Although critics have predicted such falloff, some experts don’t see that happening.

“They [CBS] seem to be made of Teflon -- nothing seems to be sticking to them,” said Brad Adgate, research director for the ad-buying firm Horizon Media.

“Most of this stuff is unrelated and it’s not going to affect their prime-time entertainment programs.... I don’t think people sit down to watch “CSI: New York” and think: Dan Rather.”

If there was any silver lining in these developments, some say, it was that CBS now has an opportunity to clean house and strengthen its credibility.

“The future of CBS depends more on what happens with this independent panel over the next few weeks than what has already happened with the National Guard broadcast,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism.

“But the risk is that Viacom [CBS’ corporate parent] will say, ‘This news stuff is embarrassing, and it’s also a financial headache,’ and make the news division even less important than it is.”

Buoying CBS was the good ratings news that has greeted it with the official start of the fall entertainment season this week.

CBS, which was the most-watched network last season, with a season average of 13.1 million viewers, won handily on Monday and Tuesday, the first two nights of the season. Monday’s triumph of the returning “CSI: Miami” over NBC’s new “LAX” was particularly heartening to CBS executives. On Tuesday, a combination of the finales of “Big Brother” and “The Amazing Race” also won that night’s ratings.

On Wednesday, CBS was poised to get an even better measure of its new season, when the network’s new, much-anticipated “CSI: NY” went head to head with NBC’s long-dominant “Law and Order.”

For all the problems in the news division, there was no indication that “CBS Evening News” has been harmed in the ratings by the “60 Minutes” scandal. The program has been modestly below the ratings it received a year ago, just as it had been in the weeks before the document scandal broke, according to an analysis of Nielsen Media Research ratings.

“If you were to see a seismic shift in the ratings, it wouldn’t show up yet,” said Andrew Tyndall, who runs the Tyndall Report, which monitors the content of television news. “It’s not something you just point to after one week.”

Times staff writer Lynn Smith contributed to this report. Getlin and Jensen reported from New York, James from Los Angeles.