public eye

So the new CBS blog, Public Eye, debuted today. People wanted transparency, and now they have it:

Public Eye’s fundamental mission is to bring transparency to the editorial operations of CBS News — transparency that is unprecedented for broadcast and online journalism.

And what, exactly, is transparency? It has several aspects, but most simply it is this: the journalists who make the important editorial decisions at CBS News and CBSNews.com will now be asked to explain and answer questions about those decisions in a public forum. [emphasis mine]

Public Eye will be run by a team of independent and experienced journalists. They will take questions, criticisms and observations from our vast and articulate audience to the people of CBS News and try to come back with some answers, explanations and analyses. The Public Eye team will also report on CBS News, working sources, talking to the reporters, producers and executives who make the news, not just to the press office.

Public Eye is an opportunity for our audience to hold CBS News more publicly accountable. It is also an opportunity for CBS News to be more open about how and why it makes editorial decisions that affect what millions of people see, hear and read each news day. So Public Eye will be a forum for debate, a conversation about the news between the people who produce it and the people who consume it. We hope the debate will not be a series of pompous discourses on Serious Journalism.

Among the offerings on its first day is video of CBS’ 10:30 meeting — the main daily meeting where all the important decisions are made. Putting that online is really an extraordinary step. (Although the meeting itself was actually a little dry … will anyone really watch it regularly? One reason media organizations haven’t been that transparent in the past is because we didn’t want to bore y’all…)

In any case, it’s a pretty big step, and I hope all those who continue to beat the “Rathergate” drum give CBS the appropriate kudos on this.