Panel Finds CBS News Rushed Report on Bush's Guard Record

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 10, 2005 -- Panel Finds CBS News Rushed Report on Bush's Guard Record

By JACQUES STEINBERG and BILL CARTER
Published: January 10, 2005

An independent panel convened by CBS to investigate a discredited broadcast about President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service has concluded that the network's news division rushed the report onto the air in September in a frenetic dash to beat its competitors. The report also says the network failed to seriously consider contradictory information raised not only before the segment was aired but for nearly two weeks afterward.

After releasing a 224-page report submitted to him by the independent panel, Leslie Moonves, co-president and co-chief operating officer of Viacom, the network's parent company, announced today that he had fired Mary Mapes, the longtime CBS producer who had prepared the segment.

Mr. Moonves also announced that he was demanding the resignations of three CBS News executives who had overseen the segment. They are Betsy West, a senior vice president and a top deputy to Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News; Josh Howard, who had become executive producer of the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes" only weeks before it broadcast the disputed segment; and Mary Murphy, his deputy.

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