Media Tidbits: Rather Delayed, N.Y. Times Plugs McGreevey, Nasty Foley CBS E-Mails

TVNewser notes "Dan Rather Reports will still be coming soon to Mark Cuban's HDNet. Just not as soon," Ed Bark reports. The program was to launch in October. But in an e-mail, Cuban now says: "We are moving Dan back to after the elections so there won't be as much going on." Perhaps it's because the last weeks of an election season, he looks a little like Captain Ahab, "reckless, arrogant, and ideologically blind in his pursuit of Moby Bush."

The New York Times adds to its list of "Times Talks" events promoting homosexuality by sponsoring remarks by gay ex-Gov. Jim McGreevey promoting sales and signings of his new memoir book "The Confession." The event is scheduled for next Saturday, October 14 in San Francisco, co-sponsored by the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center. The conversation will by moderated by Dudley Clendinen, described by the Times as "New York Times contributor and author of Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America."

At the CBS Public Eye site, Vaughn Ververs reported that a CBS employee (a tape archivist they claim somehow doesn't count as a news gatherer, just a tape gatherer) sent a nasty Foley-related note to the RNC:

The conservative Web site RedState today has posted an e-mail sent to the Republican National Committee by CBS News employee Vincent Cammisa, a tape archivist at the network. Under the subject head reading, “Perverted Internship Program,” the e-mail reads:

Please send me information on how I can become an intern for some perverted, phony family-values Congressman. I know there's no shortage of Republican hypocrites on the Hill, so please rush me the info ASAP. And don't forget to keep covering-up your dirty little secrets, it makes great fodder for your enemies.

I asked Linda Mason, senior vice president for standards and special projects at CBS News, about the e-mail and she told me:

CBS News standards do not allow CBS personnel to identify publicly with either party. Vincent Cammisa is an archivist and has no part in gathering or producing the news. He has been spoken to and told to do nothing like this again. This e-mail in no way reflects the views of CBS News.

RedState’s Dan McLaughlin comments on the e-mail:

The first funny thing about seeing the mask drop and the real politics of people high and low in the Mainstream Media revealed is how regularly these sorts of things show not just liberalism, but nasty, gloating, scornful leftism of the most unappealing sort - the very antithesis of the kind of attitude one would want from even a fair-minded journal of liberal opinion, let alone a news source that at least pretends to be objective.

Ververs was right to post this material up -- it lives up to the promise CBS made to be more transparent -- and he's right to relate the CBS view and then acknowledge "it’s absolutely fair for critics to air such an ill-advised e-mail when it’s sent from a CBS News account."