This is crazy. This Mary Mapes seems to have a history of nefarious reporting and activity:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=cbs+producer+mary+mapes&btnG=Search
James Byrd!!!
Dirty tricks!
Rather is in this up to his eyeballs!
James Byrd!!!
Dirty tricks!
Rather is in this up to his eyeballs!
Ms. Mapes's key point is her claim that 60 Minutes II sat on the story at the Pentagon's request for over 2 weeks, showing it only after they discovered the photographs were about to leak in other media outlets and after they informed the Pentagon of this fact and of their intent to air the report finally.
CHARLIE ROSE: Mary, let me just go first to you. Tell me about this story coming to 60 Minutes II because it has gotten such enormous play---how it came to you---and the relationship---because Dan [Rather] said at the end of the broadcast that there had been communication with the military, and you had been sitting on the story for whatever reason.
MARY MAPES: Well, we first got word of this---I think it was in mid-February---and I work with an associate producer Dana Roberson---Dana got the first tip---and we ended up chasing it, chasing it halfway around the world and back again. Trying not just to chase the rumors of it, but---but to find out what the reality of it. And in the beginning, a lot of it was whispered accounts of pictures that existed somewhere, an investigation that was going somewhere against someone, and we were able luckily to narrow that down and get our hands on the pictures which really gave us our first real hard proof that this was real.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what was the conflict within? Tell me about the journalistic decision to go with it. I mean, what did you need before you were willing to go with it? How much pressure was there not to do... to do it? What kind of communication with the Pentagon?
MARY MAPES: Well, we were always going to go with the story. I mean, once we had the facts of the story and the pictures and---and what we felt the context in which we could put the story, we were ready to go with it. When we contacted the Army, and I think this was the---we delayed the story 2 weeks as part of the process and continued to gather information along the way---but---when we first spoke with the Army about providing a spokesperson, which they felt they needed to do, they didn’t have anyone on hand they said who could speak to us at a high enough level about it and ultimately they asked: Please, could you wait until we have a general here or someone who could speak knowledgeably about it. And they also raised concerns about the hostages and Fallujah and the situation in Iraq. And we thought it would be the better part of valor to defer the story for a week, which we did. And then the second week came along and we kind of got the same sort of response from the Pentagon, that they wanted more time for the hostage or Fallujah situation to play itself out, and we got from high levels in the Pentagon a request that we hold it. And then the third week, the week we ran it, we made the decision early on that we were going to run it, in part because---and we had spoken to the Pentagon about this---the pictures were beginning to leak out and the story was beginning to leak out, and it was, um, time to g
"This is crazy. This Mary Mapes seems to have a history of nefarious reporting and activity:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=cbs+producer+mary+mapes&btnG=Search "
Wow...Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A must read!!!!
What a B*tch. She probably "Lewinskied" her way to the top....
I knew I had heard that name before....seems she's got a long history with Dan Rather.