Mary Mapes, the fired CBS News producer who oversaw the report which led to the Memogate scandal is out promoting her new book on the affair. Her first TV interview since being shown the door airs tomorrow morning on ABC's "Good Morning America." Here's some excerpts from the ABC preview:
In her interview with ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross, to be broadcast Wednesday morning on "Good Morning America," Mapes says she is unrepentant about her role. "I don't think I committed bad journalism. I really don't," she says.
Mapes is author of a newly-published book about the controversy, called "Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power" (St. Martin's Press). [...]
Mapes tells Ross she feels in no way responsible for what happened at CBS News in the wake of her "60 Minutes II" report.
"If you're talking about an investigation that basically gutted a news organization, and turned people one against another and made people afraid of each other, and really scooted the country's most experienced anchor out of his anchor chair, and now has the evening news casting about for some kind of format that will be zippy and new, I didn't do that. I had absolutely nothing to do with any of that," she said. [...]
Mapes says she believes the panel's findings were used by CBS President Les Moonves as a pretext to remove Dan Rather as anchor of the "CBS Evening News."
"Les Moonves viewed the news department as being kind of an uppity group of folks who thought they worked in news rather than television news," she told Ross. "And he wanted them to work in television." [...]
