Bias Complaint at CBS News

Fired Producer Portrays Bob Schieffer as Bigoted

An African American producer who had been at CBS News for 13 years is attributing her March termination to racial discrimination, noting that “not one of CBS News’ eight broadcasts is in any way directed, influenced, or shaped by an African American or any minority holding a senior position on that broadcast.

“There is not one single African American person holding a rank above producer on any of CBS’ eight separate broadcasts,” states a complaint to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed by Raylena Fields, 52, who said she earned $185,000 a year.

“In the last eighteen (18) months, at least five African American women were, in one way or another, forced out of their jobs at CBS News. Only one African American male has been promoted to a producer position at CBS News in the last decade.”

Her complaint, which her lawyer told Journal-isms was filed March 30 at the EEOC offices in New York, paints an unflattering picture of “CBS Evening News” anchor Bob Schieffer, who has won praise from critics and viewers for his avuncular, folksy style since taking over from Dan Rather 13 months ago.

“My termination is also retaliatory,” the complaint reads. “It came almost one month to the day, after I filed a complaint that CBS Evening News anchorman Bob Schieffer asked me to answer his phones, something a veteran similarly situated Staff Producer, would have never been asked to do. When I responded that I would find someone to help him, Mr. Schieffer raised his voice at me in front of his quests and said, ‘Well, if you can’t be bothered!’ I chose not to be intimidated and ran down to the newsroom and found an entry level person to handle Mr. Schieffer’s phones until his secretary got in.

“Bob Schieffer has a reputation for bigotry,” the complaint continues. “Mr. Schieffer frequently and publicly refers to a newsroom assistant as ‘Brownie’ due to the complexion of his skin.

“I personally witnessed Bob Schieffer address a veteran African American correspondent as ‘Hey, Boy.’

“I wrote an official complaint about Bob Schieffer’s actions toward me to Linda Mason, Vice President, CBS News, and Rome Hartman, Executive Producer, CBS Evening News. Neither responded. Less than a month after the Schieffer incident, Mason and Hartman called me into a meeting and terminated me.”

[Added April 11: CBS spokeswoman Sandra M. Genelius issued this statement Tuesday morning: “We strongly deny these allegations. Ms. Fields’ employment was terminated for completely lawful reasons connected to a reshaping of the CBS EVENING NEWS under new leadership.”]

The complaint comes just as CBS is winning kudos for appointing Katie Couric as the first woman to anchor a prime-time newscast solo during the week, and a week after it named Russ Mitchell, who is African American, as its Sunday evening news anchor.

In expanding on her claim that her firing was partly in retaliation for complaining about racial matters, Fields wrote, “in January 2006, I complained that I was troubled by the reporting and tone of a story done by Washington correspondent, Gloria Borger regarding the questioning of Judge Sam Alito,” who was successfully nominated for the Supreme Court. “I stated that the tenor of Ms. Borger’s piece was that Democrats questioning Sam Alito on issues of race and gender, and possible bigoted behavior, ‘crossed the line’ because it made his wife cry. Somehow the wife crying trumped this critical line of questioning.

“In February 2006, I prepared a story relating to a black death row inmate in Louisiana, who was exonerated due to the intervention of a group of attorneys from England and Australia.

“I was told by Senior Producer Reid Collins that talking about race in the story was ‘veering off point.’ I argued that 72% of all the people incarcerated in Louisiana are black and that you can’t discuss the American criminal justice system without discussing race. Mr. [Collins] declared that our viewers were not going to like my story.

“Without my knowledge, Reid Collins telephoned one of the characters in my story, questioning my reporting. This was an unprecedented departure from standard policy. Similarly situated veteran Staff Producers are not subjected to the same treatment.”

Spencer H. Lewis Jr., director of the New York District office of the EEOC, said commission rules prevent him from confirming or denying that a complaint was filed. A copy was provided by Fields’ lawyer, Gregory R. Preston.

Lewis said the commission typically asks the accused to respond with a statement and any supporting evidence, and presents the option of resolving the dispute by mediation.

If that option is rejected, a commission investigation lasting perhaps 10 months takes place.

In 2000, the commission announced it had settled a major sex discrimination lawsuit against CBS Broadcasting, Inc., for $8 million in financial compensation for approximately 200 female workers. “The suit charged CBS with subjecting a class of female technicians to a pattern and practice of discrimination in regard to salary, over time, promotions, and training; creating a hostile work environment that included sexual harassment; and retaliating against female employees for complaining about the discrimination,” it announced in a news release.

Fields joined CBS after having been at ABC, where she had been acting senior broadcast producer for “Good Morning America’s” news segments and director of talent recruitment and development at ABC News.

At CBS’ “60 Minutes 2,” she said, she was “the only black producer on staff, and the only producer that the show frequently required to work without an associate producer.” Hartman, who joined the “CBS Evening News” in January, accused her of low production on both shows, Fields said. She argued that “terminating me for purportedly not doing as many stories as other Staff Producers, while ignoring the fact that I produced many more investigative and enterprised stories than my peers, is evidence of a pattern and practice of disparate treatment of me and of the disparate impact that CBS’ policies have on African Americans.

“Twice, on stories relating to Osama Bin Laden’s family, and following the trail of the 9ll hijackers, my investigative work resulted in major ‘scoops’ which excited senior staff. Each time, however, my bosses insisted that those ‘scoops’ be turned over to other producers who were white.”

The complaint also alleges that terminating her contract violates the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. “The enormous stress due to discriminatory treatment I received at Sixty Minutes Two, brought on a condition diagnosed as Cervical Ridiculitis. I had to take several weeks of full medical leave and undergo physical therapy over a two-year span.

“At times, I came to work at the Evening News while taking prescribed narcotic painkillers, wearing a neck brace, and using heating pads to cope with the pain,” the complaint said.

Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said tonight, “We are deeply troubled by the assertions in this CBS complaint. NABJ is in contact with Ms. Fields and [we] are looking into the allegations.”

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Connie Chung: Don’t Pit Couric Against Vargas

Connie Chung hopes that media meanies don’t pit Katie Couric against ABC “World News Tonight” coanchor Elizabeth Vargas “as some kind of catfight,” Gail Shister, Philadelphia Inquirer television columnist, reported today.

“It’s fine if they position all the individuals against each other – [ABC’s] Bob Woodruff and [NBC’s] Brian Williams.”

“Otherwise, ‘it’s just plain sexist. I know it’s a tradition, but I’d love to see the tradition broken,'” Shister wrote, quoting Chung.

According to Don Kaplan, writing today in the New York Post, “Connie Chung emerged as the front-runner for the job” being vacated by Meredith Vieira on “The View,” late last week. Vieira is taking Couric’s place on “Today.”

Meanwhile, Marc Peyser and Johnnie L. Roberts wrote in this week’s Newsweek magazine that the selection of Couric heralds a different kind of news program.

“CBS obviously knew all about the softer side of Couric. In fact, it’s a major reason it hired her,” they said. “The ‘Evening News,’ with 7.7 million viewers a night, has been stuck in last place for years, and, like the other nightly newscasts, its audience’s average age is an advertiser-unfriendly 60. A radical operation may have been the only way to save the patient.

“NEWSWEEK has learned that CBS CEO Les Moonves was so intent on blowing up the traditional network-news model that he also pursued Couric’s ‘Today’ successor, Meredith Vieira, in case Couric balked. CBS is happy with the outcome, a spokesman said. ‘Clearly, we think it is time for a new kind of news,’ says a CBS executive who didn’t want to be identified to avoid provoking NBC while Couric is still on ‘Today.’ ‘I don’t think evening news is dead. When you put people in like Katie, there is potential to grow. This is the first woman anchor. That might mean something.'”

• Holly Mullen, Salt Lake Tribune: Men may scoff, but Couric has skills
• Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: Women Hail Couric’s Move to Anchor Chair
• Les Payne, Newsday: Couric steps into a credibility gap
• Johnnie L. Roberts, Newsweek: The Future of Evening News

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Latino Clamor Compared With ’60s Rights Movement

“The massive demonstrations by Hispanics across the country have the look of civil rights history. The crowds protesting punitive immigration legislation have been huge, rivaling or exceeding the gathering for the 1963 March on Washington. Is this in fact a major new civil rights movement?” Juan Williams asked today in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post.

“Sadly, anxiety over the increasing Hispanic population has caused some leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP to become tongue-tied on the subject,” continued Williams, senior correspondent for National Public Radio, commentator on Fox News and author of the book version of the multipart television documentary “Eyes on the Prize.”

“Privately, these members of Congress point to prison riots in California between blacks and Hispanics and turf fights between black and Hispanic high school students as evidence of rising tension between minority groups. There is a reluctance to counter this fear-mongering with a forward-looking vision of new coalitions among people of color. Instead there has been a lot of pandering to the worst instincts of people who often share with Hispanics the problems of bad schools, high incarceration rates and life at the bottom of the economic ladder.”

• Darryl Fears, Washington Post: Job Issue Muddles Immigration Views: Blacks’ Personal, Policy Stances Collide
• Earl Ofari Hutchinson, syndicated: Where are voices of black leaders on immigration?
• Lia Miller, New York Times: To Marshal Immigrant Forces, Start at Ethnic Radio Stations
• Ruben Navarrette, San Diego Union-Tribune: Immigration is everything in this election
• Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune: There oughta be a law (we’ll enforce)
• James Ragland, Dallas Morning News: Mass march amply conveys immigration’s import
• Cindy Rodriguez, Denver Post: Try “A Day Without a Latino”
• Bob Ray Sanders, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Out of shadows and into streets
• Dawn Turner Trice, Chicago Tribune: Students rally for own future and immigrants’
• Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Big Business grows fat from illegal workers
• Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times: Immigrant Crusade Enlists Few Blacks
• DeWayne Wickham, Gannett News Service: U.S. uses a double standard for Haitians
• “News and Notes With Ed Gordon” (audio) African and Caribbean Immigration

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Critic Says Grieving Boy, 6, Should Not Be on TV

“Memo to CNN president Jonathan Klein from Media Log:

“No matter how tempting it might be in your pursuit of the heart-wrenching human interest story, do not repeat this morning’s sorry and sordid attempt to interview a grieving six-year-old on your air, even under the generally gentle prodding of Soledad O’Brien,” the Boston Phoenix’s Mark Jurkowitz wrote today on his blog.

“This morning’s tragedy travesty occurred when CNN tried to interview six-year-old Robert Turner, a Detroit kid whose mother tragically died after several of his 911 calls seeking help for her were treated as pranks.

“And Jack Kevorkian lawyer Geoffrey Fieger, who already gets plenty of TV face time, deserves his share of scorn for shamelessly parading the little boy in front of the cameras.”

“. . . P.S.– I didn’t have the misfortune of seeing the Sunday ‘Today’ story that included the young boy, but the same goes for them.”

“Today” carried a report from Derricke Dennis of its Detroit affiliate, WDIV-TV. “I tried to tell them she wouldn’t talk,” the boy said.

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Gay Group Awards; Applauds AP Style Changes

In the last 30 days, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation made two rounds of media awards and announced it had prompted changes in the Associated Press stylebook, the bible for most news outlets.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender media advocacy group called the stylebook changes “a significant step forward in promoting fair, accurate and inclusive language throughout the nation’s media.”

“For the AP Stylebook to update these entries is a significant milestone,” GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano, said on March 13, praising the AP’s decisions to encourage use of the term “transgender,” restrict usage of the word “homosexual” and to “avoid references to ‘sexual preference’ or to a gay or alternative ‘lifestyle.'”

Among the awards presented March 28 and Saturday were:

• Outstanding TV Journalism – News Segment: “Andrew Goldstein” ESPN SportsCenter (ESPN), accepted by Goldstein, an All-American Dartmouth lacrosse player.
• Outstanding Magazine Overall Coverage: Newsweek, accepted by Marcus Mabry, chief of correspondents and senior editor.
• Outstanding Spanish-language Newspaper Columnist: Luis Barrios, El Diario/La Prensa, New York, accepted by Barrios.
• Outstanding TV Journalism – Newsmagazine: “Gay Rodeo,” Only In America (Discovery Times Channel)
• Outstanding Newspaper Article – “The Stewards of Gay Washington” by Anne Hull (Washington Post)
• Outstanding Newspaper Columnist – Deb Price (Detroit News)
• Outstanding Newspaper Overall Coverage – USA Today
• Outstanding Magazine Article – “The Murder of a Boy Named Gwen” by Bob Moser (Rolling Stone)
• Outstanding Newspaper Overall Coverage, Spanish-language – Hoy, New York

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Short Takes

• National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” will broadcast a half-hour documentary capturing the year-long audio diary of a 19-year-old South African living with AIDS on April 19, NPR announced today. “Thembi Ngubane, who lives in the township of Khayelitsha, tells this story from the personal side — from breaking the news to her family, receiving drugs at a local clinic, being ostracized by friends and neighbors and building her relationship with her boyfriend.”
• “A multitude of factors limit black American access to the growing crisis in Sudan, where the death toll is estimated to be as high as 400,000 and more than 2.5 million people are in refugee camps following the destruction of their villages,” Ervin Dyer wrote today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Dyer listed “lack of news media attention, black leaders’ focus on surviving critical domestic problems, the black community’s lack of focus on international issues and the perception that the Darfur campaign is largely the province of the Jewish community.” Dyer attended the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program in 1986.
• The Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger and its writer Jerry Mitchell, whose reporting led to the indictment and conviction of aging Klansman Edgar Ray Killen in the 1964 slayings of three civil-rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss., won top awards in the Best of Gannett contest, news executive George Benge reported to Gannett colleagues. Jannell McGrew of the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser won a writing award for “Voices of the Boycott,” a special section commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Montgomery bus boycott. Benge was on the Maynard Institute’s Editing Program faculty in 1996-97 and McGrew attended the Maynard Institute Media Academy this year.
• “Michiko Kakutani recently embarked on her 25th year as a New York Times book critic, and it’s gotten to the point that when her name is mentioned in print, you can see the smoke rising from the page,” Ben Yagoda wrote today on slate.com in an evaluation of Kakutani’s work.
• “The creation of the CW network, a consolidation of UPN and the WB, is expected to eliminate half of the ethnic sitcoms that currently air on UPN, along with a number of other UPN shows, tossing up for grabs about $100 million in ad dollars targeting African-American viewers,” Anthony Crupi and John Consoli reported today in Mediaweek.
• “The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the killing on Wednesday of Venezuelan photographer Jorge Aguirre, who was shot as he approached an anti-crime demonstration. CPJ calls on Venezuelan authorities to conduct a prompt investigation and bring the killer to justice,” the organization said Thursday.
• “China has placed a moratorium on new foreign magazines on topics other than science and technology, dealing a blow to international media companies looking to tap the nation’s booming advertising market,” Geoffrey A. Fowler and Juying Qin reported Friday for the Wall Street Journal. “One casualty of the policy, adopted by China’s top publishing regulator, is the Chinese edition of the rock and youth-culture magazine Rolling Stone.”