Mike Wallace, long considered one of the most fearsome interviewers in broadcast news, has died. He was 93.  A spokesman for CBS told the Associated Press that Mr. Wallace died Saturday night.

Mr. Wallace went into a kind of semi-retirement from regular appearances on 60 Minutes in 2006 but kept a promise made upon announcing his slowdown to do occasional new reports, profiling Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2007 as well as "suicide doctor" Jack Kevorkian.

Over the course of his 6 decades as a newsman Mike Wallace frequently went toe-to-toe with the famous and powerful in interviews legendary for their confrontational and emotional nature. As the A.P. reports in his obituary, Mr. Wallace once managed to break through Barbra Streisand's intensely controlled public persona:

In the early 1990s, Wallace reduced Barbra Streisand to tears as he scolded her for being "totally self-absorbed" when she was young and mocked her decades of psychoanalysis. "What is it she is trying to find out that takes 20 years?" Wallace said he wondered.

"I'm a slow learner," Streisand told him.

Mike Wallace was also one of the pioneers of the ambush interview, in which a news crew unexpectedly confronts a subject. He also disavowed this approach in later years, stating that it was a dramatic approach but ultimately not particularly informative.

Mr. Wallace leaves behind his fourth wife, Mary Yates Wallace, his son, Fox news stalwart Chris Wallace, stepdaughter Pauline Dora and a stepson, Eames Yates.

Mike Wallace's inimitable style has few imitators today. Aggressive, skeptical, challenging, wickedly well-prepared, he eschewed chummy, softball interviews designed solely to maintain journalistic "access" in favor of tearing his way through to whatever might be the truth. He wasn't the only journalist long-lived enough to have reported from hazy studios, cigarette in hand then later in videos broadcast over the Internet, but he was easily among the most feared and memorable.

Harry Smith (Getty Images)

Another shift in the TV-news landscape today, as Harry Smith--the former anchor of CBS's beleaguered Early Show--departs for NBC News, where he will work on Brian Williams's as-yet untitled primetime newsmagazine. The glossy allure of new projects (a new prime-time show luring talent like Mr. Smith, a new talk show for Katie Couric) just can't hold up to the dubious lures of ever-struggling CBS News!

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

The most recent cuts in London follow broader tightening over the last two years at CBS News stateside and abroad. At the beginning of the year, CBS issued cuts to dozens of staff, including some veteran producers.

Mr. Friedman spoke with The Observer in January of 2009 as CBS was using reporters out of its London Bureau to cover stories as far away as the Middle East. "The old model no longer applies,”  Mr. Friedman said. “You do not need a massive infrastructure, as long as you can mobilize people quickly when the story develops." One week earlier, following cuts to CBS Tel Aviv bureau, London-based correspondent Mark Phillips flew to the Gaza Strip to cover a story.

Page Six also reported yesterday that CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric may return to The Today Show when her contract expires in May. Insiders called the speculation "ridiculous."

Earlier: D-Day at CBS News  / Do You Know the Way to Tel Aviv? For CBS, via London

The network is already in tough shape after cutting 100 jobs in February. This summer Katie Couric's CBS Evening News saw its worst ratings in 20 years. Nobody at the news network has been able to get new business cards since then because the person who handled the orders was cut. Cell phone service has been limited on many producers' BlackBerries to save extra money (they've been told to use text messages instead). Nobody in the office ever hears from CBS news division president Sean McManus anymore. But at least speculation about Ms. Couric's future at the network is alive and well.

CBS News is defintely not alone. Elsewhere in the media business, USA Today will also be making somewhere around 130 cuts this fall.

Update: Steve Krakauer heard from a CBS spokesperson, who said that Ms. Dana's speculation is "ridiculous."

Today, CBS News released a few tidbits from Mr. O'Brien's interview with Steve Kroft.

At one point, Mr. O'Brien tells Mr. Kroft that (surprise, surprise) he would have handled the whole Tonight Show clusterfuck much differently than Mr. Leno: 

He went and took that show back and I think in a similar situation, if roles had been reversed, I know--I know me, I wouldn't have done that...If I had surrendered The Tonight Show and handed it over to somebody publicly and wished them well-- and then…six months later.  But that's me, you know.  Everyone's got their own, you know, way of doing things.

Ms. Dozier will serve as the AP's new intelligence reporter.

Ron Fournier, the AP's Washington Bureau Chief, announced the move in a memo to staff members:

Colleagues,

I'm pleased to announce the AP's new intelligence reporter: Kimberly Dozier.

You may know Kim as the Middle East correspondent for CBS News, where she earned a reputation as a tireless reporter covering hot spots, from Israel to the war in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. She reported on the war in Iraq from 2003 until she was injured in a car bombing in 2006. For the last three years, Kim has covered the White House, the Pentagon and national security out of the CBS Washington Bureau.

Previously, she was London bureau chief and chief European correspondent for CBS Radio News as well as a television reporter for CBS News based in Israel. She has covered world events ranging from the crisis in the Balkans to the death of Princess Diana.

In the 1990s, Kim was an anchor for the BBC Radio World Service's "World Update." While living in Cairo, Kim did freelance reporting for The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.

As part of Steve Braun's terror team in Washington, Kim will help the AP break news and produce high-impact enterprise stories. She will work with AP reporters around the globe, focusing on stories about the growing security threats against the United States and its allies.

She starts late next month. This is an exciting time for WDC and Kim. Please welcome her to the bureau.

Many thanks,

Ron

 

In recent years, CBS News has cut back on much of its reporting staff overseas, including at its bureaus in Tel Aviv and Baghdad, where Ms. Dozier did much of her work for the network in the first half of the decade, until she was injured in a car bombing in 2006.

What's the idea behind NewsTsar?

"My hope is to marry news content with all the social media tools out there, whether it's Twitter or Facebook or even various iPhone apps," Mr. Shalev told The Observer on Wednesday afternoon. "The idea is to try and find a way to blend them into a compelling news gathering and distribution system. More than that I can't really say. It is a baked idea but I don't want to give it away."

Mr. Shalev says that he has no outside funding for the project, nor has he been shopping for investors. "I think this is something I can bootstrap myself," said Mr. Shalev. "There may be a point where we need more funding. But as we all know the Web has a fairly low cost of entry. I'm in a pretty fortunate position for the first time in my life to do this."

Mr. Shalev, 36, who was born in Israel, raised in South Africa and who has spent significant time living in Toronto, says he plans on staying in New York. The NewsTsar project has been in development for several months now, he said. To date, most of the work has been done by contract workers. But at some point he anticipates hiring a full-time staff.

"I think it will be live within six months," said Mr. Shalev. "Hopefully sooner."

Mr. Friedman most recently worked as the executive producer on NBC's Last Call With Carson Daily. He has also had stints producing on Rosie O'Donnell's show and on NBC's Today.

He is the son of CBS News executive vice president Paul Friedman.

Sean McManus, the president of sports and news at CBS, told CBS staffers of Mr. Shalev's departure in an email this morning.

"I am writing to inform you that Zev Shalev will be leaving THE EARLY SHOW and CBS News," Mr. McManus wrote. "Zev is moving on to new opportunities and is excited to develop new content with alternative distribution models. Zev tells me that his first project, NewsTsar, brings together news and social media and will launch in the second quarter of next year."

When reached for comment about Mr. Friedman, a CBS News spokesperson told The Observer, "We decline to comment on speculation."

On Oct.3, two days after news broke of the alleged blackmail attempt of David Letterman by 48 Hours producer Joe Halderman, CBS Evening News executive producer Rick Kaplan told The Washington Post that the network would be reporting the story as though it were a scandal in the Commerce Committee.

Afterward, TV news veterans were skeptical. But, according to The Observer’s sources, Mr. Keteyian and his team of producers are actively investigating the love triangle gone horribly awry between the CBS Late Show host; his former employee Stephanie Birkitt; and the suspended-with-pay Mr. Halderman.

There has been much speculation about how CBS will handle the situation internally. On Oct. 5, CBS legal counsel Louis Briskman seemed to suggest in an interview with AM Law Daily that the network’s legal team was working on an in-house probe. However, a CBS spokesperson later clarified that the network’s lawyers were only cooperating with outside law enforcement authorities—not conducting their own inquiry.

Reporting on bleeding news stories within your place of employment is never an uncomplicated task, and if they gave out Emmys for most awkward news assignments, Mr. Keteyian’s current work would certainly be a strong contender for consideration in 2009. “Think of the ironies here and the awkward position for the CBS corporation,” said one of Mr. Halderman’s former colleagues. “Anything they dig up that mitigates Joe’s position hurts Letterman—a much bigger consideration.”

Whether the story ever makes it to the airwaves remains to be seen. But current and former CBS News staffers who spoke to The Observer said they’d be surprised if the news divisions pulls any punches. “From having talked to some friends there, who are pretty highly placed, they really want to hit this story hard, like any other journalistic story,” Dr. Bob Arnot, a former CBS news correspondent and friend of Mr. Halderman’s, recently told The Observer. “They want to be ahead of the pack because it’s in their own house.”

To date, the CBS Evening News has done one story about the alleged $2 million blackmail plot, which Jeff Glor reported on Friday, Oct. 2—and which was more or less similar in tone and content to the coverage on ABC’s World News and on NBC’s Nightly News. Since that first night, the evening newscasts have pretty much moved on.

The morning shows, however, had a weeklong field day with Mr. Letterman’s confession of having slept with several of his employees. Leading the charge was NBC’s Today, which cranked out a number of juicy stories exploring various angles of Mr. Letterman’s titillating affair with Ms. Birkitt. Along the way, Dan Abrams stated that “there’s no question that CBS can’t completely separate themselves from this.” And Al Roker called the Letterman story “the gift that keeps on giving.”

At a time when CBS and NBC are locked in a late-night ratings battle, Today’s coverage of the unflattering story raised some hackles at CBS. “They certainly have a vested interest in tearing down Letterman to bolster Conan (that’s a losing effort so far),” emailed one of Mr. Halderman’s former colleagues. “Also, they enjoy making 48 Hours look bad—it’s a competitor to Dateline, which chases the same crime stories. You can be sure the next time Dateline producers are competing with 48 Hours on a story they will mention this episode to the characters. So NBC’s hyper-coverage certainly can be explained.”

In the meantime, staffers at CBS are curious about where Mr. Keteyian’s reporting will take him. Will he get the first, extensive interview with Mr. Halderman? Not likely, according to Mr. Arnot, who said he has spoken and emailed with Mr. Halderman in recent days.

“What I know, as of the weekend, was that Joe was not going to participate at all in anything with CBS,” said Mr. Arnot. “He wasn’t giving interviews. He wasn’t talking to them. He’s been put strictly off-limits by his lawyers. He, his family, his friends are really withdrawing from any media interaction. I don’t think CBS is going to have much of a home-court advantage here.”

fgillette@observer.com

Sure enough, over the weekend, 60 Minutes featured a story called “A Blow to the Brain” that covered much of the same ground as a piece Dan Rather had reported six months earlier for HDNet, called “Knocking Heads.”

“Were they copying us?” Mr. Nelson said to The Observer on Tuesday morning. “I hope not.”

In “Knocking Heads,” Dan Rather reported that, according to the CDC, sports concussions were “an epidemic.” Over the weekend, Mr. Simon reported on CBS that, according to the CDC, sports concussions were “an epidemic.” To flesh out the story, Mr. Rather had interviewed former New England Patriot Ted Johnson, who talked about playing through concussions, and not always being able to see straight in the huddle. Six months later, Mr. Johnson could be found on 60 Minutes telling the same stories.

Elsewhere in the 60 Minutes piece, Mr. Simon interviewed (a) a neurosurgeon, Dr. Robert Cantu; (b) Dr. Anne McKee of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy; and (c) the father of a young man named Zachary Lystedt, who suffered traumatic head injuries when he was reinserted in a junior-high-school football game after getting a concussion in the first half. All three subjects had previously been featured in Mr. Rather’s piece.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, CBS News appeared to be doing something it hadn’t done in years: paying a compliment to Dan Rather, the network’s long-estranged anchor.

“There are lots of great stories out there,” said Mr. Nelson, who for years worked as a producer at 60 Minutes. “We don’t have the market cornered. And they certainly don’t have the market cornered. But I’d like us to be recognized for what we do. 60 Minutes is not the be-all, end-all of serious television journalism anymore. I think it just points to the fact that Dan is busting his ass over here, doing some of the best work he’s ever done.” 

“We haven’t seen the segment they are talking about,” said a 60 Minutes spokesperson. “We wish their program the best of luck.”

Feature stories get recycled fairly often in broadcast news. But what makes 60 Minutes’ repeat of Mr. Rather’s story somewhat ironic is that CBS News lawyers and executives have spent the past several years publicly knocking Mr. Rather’s reporting chops.

In his $70 million lawsuit against CBS News (which was recently dismissed in an appellate ruling), Mr. Rather had repeatedly alleged that after stepping down as anchor of the CBS Evening News, on March 9, 2005, the network essentially buried him at 60 Minutes. “CBS provided him with few assignments, little staff, very little air time, and did not permit him to cover important stories,” read Mr. Rather’s court complaint.

Lawyers for CBS, in turn, responded that they were not contractually obligated to put Mr. Rather on the air, as long as they kept paying him. And if he failed to get the airtime, they later argued in court, it was because he didn’t earn it. (Translation: His stories weren’t up to snuff.) And recently, Jeff Fager, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, took some particularly hard shots at Mr. Rather in the L.A. Times. “I can’t for the life of me understand why he’s doing this,” said Mr. Fager, “how he could turn such a storied career into this train wreck.” On Tuesday morning, Mr. Nelson refused to gloat on Mr. Rather’s behalf. The sight of Mr. Rather beating his detractors to a story, he felt, spoke for itself.

“I have a lot of friends over there,” Mr. Nelson said of 60 Minutes. “I don’t want to dump on them. It’s not like they stole an exclusive from us. It’s just that it’s a really rich irony that they said the stories he was producing over there weren’t good enough, and then one pops up on their lineup.”

“It’s an important story to get out there, especially for CBS, which carries NFL football,” he added. “I’m glad they did it. I’m just glad we did it first.”

fgillette@observer.com