Public Eye partially blind

Incoming anchor Katie Couric swung by the CBS newsroom for the first time Wednesday, but the right-wing attack squads have already gotten a head start in trying to Rather-ize her.

No sooner was the “Today” co-host’s ascension to the “CBS Evening News” revealed this month than conservative firebrand Brent Bozell of Media Research Center opened the bomb hatch on what he called “the perky, likable, and politically liberal Katie Couric, whose biases will only reinforce CBS’ reputation as a network riddled with liberally biased reporting.”

“In her years on ‘Today,’ ” Bozell added, “she’s lectured Charlton Heston about the need for gun control, championed the need for campaign finance ‘reform,’ and even touted the wonders of France’s nanny state.” Said one anonymous poster on Public Eye, CBS’ blog covering news issues: “Katie Couric is a perfect replacement for Dan Rather ... she is just like him.”

Who knows how Couric’s alleged prejudices will manifest themselves on the revamped CBS newscast. But of all the criticisms leveled against her, left-wing ideologue seems the least persuasive. Unlike her predecessor Dan Rather, America’s news sweetheart hasn’t gotten into an on-air shouting match with one GOP president, back-sassed another and offered up dubious documents incriminating a third. She has, however, crooned with Bette Midler, clowned around with Donald Trump and costumed herself a la Marilyn Monroe, as memorialized in a gushy photo spread in the April 17 Newsweek. Much as CBS might want to burnish her hard-news bona fides (she really gave that David Duke the what for, didn’t she?), the fact remains that Couric’s crowning moment of political consciousness-raising came from allowing cameras to record her colonoscopy. If CBS honcho Les Moonves really coveted a tough female reporter with obvious liberal sympathies, we’d all be hailing the “Evening News” coronation of CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

But given Rather’s and CBS News’ history as hate magnets for the right, Couric’s skimpy record of speaking truth to power may not matter. The real issue, in terms of resolving doubts about the network’s credibility, isn’t Couric’s political orientation but whether, in the wake of the scandal over Rather’s “60 Minutes” report that brandished unverified documents to question President Bush’s military service record, CBS learned anything about public accountability. Available evidence suggests it has not.

Exhibit A is Public Eye, which launched to great fanfare last year with a lofty promise to provide “transparency” to the news division. Since its September start, the blog, a product of CBS Digital Media that does not report to the news division and is overseen by former Hotline editor Vaughn Ververs, has indeed addressed and even questioned some CBS coverage in the traditional manner of a media ombudsman. It queried correspondent Scott Pelley on his global warming reports, for example, and whacked “48 Hours” over the use of a doctored image.

But the blog goes well beyond such low-caliber internal policing -- not to mention beyond the traditional role of viewers’ representative. Ververs and his crew have used their pulpit to browbeat network competitors, most notably excoriating NBC for ethics violations in a loathsome “Dateline” series that purports to help catch suspected child molesters. In addition to making CBS News’ infractions seem relatively minor in comparison, such attacks serve to deflect attention from any internal issues of real substance. That would include the arrival of Couric, undoubtedly the biggest story to hit the news division since Rather’s departure last year.

How has Public Eye covered it? One early item urged the network not to hire Couric -- but that was written by an outside contributor. Another item mocked newspapers for relying on anonymous sources in stories about whether Couric would switch networks. A CBS producer was interviewed and praised Couric’s “taste, talent, skills and personality.” And Ververs himself offered a carefully worded “commentary” that cautiously opined: “I don’t think anyone is afraid the new anchor will come in with an eye of destroying tradition.”

Couric may not be out to pulverize the Temple of Murrow, but at least one insider sounds thoroughly skeptical of her arrival. “60 Minutes” resident loudmouth and curmudgeon Andy Rooney told Don Imus on April 5: “I don’t know anybody at CBS News who is pleased that she’s coming here.” The remarks cried out for elaboration, but don’t look for that on Public Eye. As far as the blog is concerned, Rooney never uttered those provocative words. Instead, starting April 12, Public Eye began gently spoofing the 87-year-old commentator with a feature titled “What Was Andy Thinking?,” which lists his column topics in years past.

“We look at the journalistic issues,” Ververs, a onetime aide to columnist and presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan, told me in a phone interview Friday, when I asked why the blog wasn’t covering Rooney’s anti-Couric comments. “We don’t do a lot of sort of speculation and that kind of stuff.”

But that’s not speculation, I said. Rooney said those things in a radio interview.

“But it’s a personnel issue,” Ververs replied. “We just generally don’t cover those kinds of issues. We look at the journalistic issues involving CBS News.”

Isn’t it a journalistic issue if the network’s best-known commentator suggests the new anchor lacks the confidence and support of the newsroom staff?

Ververs’ reply: “Why?”

I wanted to ask Rooney himself for elaboration, but was informed by a spokeswoman that neither he nor CBS News President Sean McManus would be available for comment.

Of course, CBS hype to the contrary, Public Eye is about as transparent as a sandbag. It better resembles an arm of the network’s public relations department than a truth-telling proxy for millions of viewers. If it’s supposed to represent the lessons Moonves & Co. learned from the Rather debacle, Couric may end up sharing more with her predecessor than either her fans or detractors currently imagine.