CBS News Fires Producer Over 'CSI: New York' Interruption

CBS News yesterday announced it has fired the producer who decided to break into last Wednesday's "Outside Man" telecast to announce the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Speaking to Reuters, an anonymous source said the producer had decided to air the segment even though she had received explicit instructions to only insert a news crawl at the bottom of the screen if Arafat's death became known during prime time. She also failed to consult a senior CBS News executive before interrupting CSI: New York, as company policy required.

"An overly aggressive CBS News producer jumped the gun with a report that should have been offered to local stations for their late news," CBS said on Thursday, while issuing an apology to fans. The network re-aired the full episode on Friday (story), while several local affiliates had already taken it upon themselves to place the missing few minutes online (story).

The controversy over the special Arafat news bulletin couldn't have come at a worse time for CBS. The network's news division still hasn't fully recovered from the public backlash after its reports about President's Bush Texas National Guard service were discredited, and anchorman Dan Rather was forced to apologise on air. In addition, CSI: New York was possibly the worst show to be cut short, as fans were already distressed over CBS pre-empting the show twice in October, once because of a presidential debate, and once because of the World Series.

While CBS refused to comment further on the Arafat issue, an insider at a competing broadcast network told trade magazine Broadcasting & Cable that they were surprised by CBS's actions. "I think people here were scratching their heads over the decision to break in, and then scratching it even harder over the apology for breaking in. [..] And now we're wondering what kind of process they have in place to take the network to a special report."

More on this can be found in the full Reuters report. Thanks go out to Al Forno for this!

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