A familiar voice weighs in on the bias that Richard Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi couldn't find at CBS News. Van Gordon Sauter, the onetime chief of the Tiffany Network's news division, writes in today's Los Angeles Times that an "unremitting liberal orientation" at the Unblinking Eye has made its news programs unwatchable:

What's the big problem at CBS News?

Well, for one thing, it has no credibility. And no audience, no morale, no long-term emblematic anchorperson and no cohesive management structure. Outside of those annoyances, it shouldn't be that hard to fix.

Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News, even though I was unceremoniously shown to the door there nearly 20 years ago in a tumultuous change of corporate management.

But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC.

Sauter advises CBS and his successor, Les Moonves, to find its way back to the political center, although he doesn't offer a roadmap for that trip. He compliments Moonves as a man who can and will turn CBS from its leftist biases, even though he describes Moonves as a liberal himself; he thinks Moonves has enough self-awareness to do the job.

Perhaps. However, Moonves did not start auspiciously this week, struggling mightily to maintain his grasp on the fiction that political bias played no role in the Memogate fiasco. He also hung onto Dan Rather, who not only plays a large part in the political orientation of the division, but repeatedly lied during and after the Killian memo story developed. Sauter doesn't address this, nor does he attempt to explain how retaining Andrew Heyward's services will create any opportunity for a fresh look at the newsroom and its lack of philosophical diversity.

Still, while Sauter may have an overdeveloped sense of optimism, at least he recognizes the problem. In that, he has surpassed Moonves, Thornburgh, and Boccardi. Maybe Viacom (the CBS parent) should think about rehiring him and dumping Moonves.

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Down, down, down, down....ratings, credibility, influence, prestige...down they plummet towards the inevitable collision with reality. The MSM still doesn't get it, and they won't until it's too late. It may already be too late. Oh the networks news... [Read More]

Tracked on January 14, 2005 8:38 AM