Mr. Bonette—wearing a gray suit and snazzy pink tie—twirled around his glass of white wine and added with a waggish smile, "On the upside, there are more advertising people that do good work to support the organization because they have more time available." The Daily Transom asked Mr. Bourette if he worried that some of the media attendees were responsible for creating content that glorified drug and alcohol use. "I'm retired. I don't watch those shows anymore; I've got my feet up on the recliner watching CNBC," he replied. "I wouldn't go so far as to say they glorify it, but acceptance is dangerous."

David Rosenbloom, the director of Join Together, turned the conversation to smoking and teen films. "I think the tobacco industry is working with movie producers to bring smoking back to movies and promote tobacco use," Mr. Rosenbloom said. Jack Thorne, the director of another nonprofit, disagreed. "Do you really think they're trying to support it? I don't think that." He thought for a moment and added, "You know, when I was in college you could smoke in the classrooms."

As the crowd was starting to pile in for dinner, we found John Mack—CEO of Morgan Stanley—about to sit down at his table. "I'm sure 20 or 25 years ago drugs were a big deal [on Wall Street]; I could be naïve and it's not like I'm on the floor or anything," he said. Then he asked the Daily Transom what we thought of drug use on Wall Street these days. What of the added stressors of the crash? "It doesn't help," Mr. Mack admitted.

Leslie Moonves of Viacom was getting his picture with Joel Klein, the chancellor of the New York City school system. "I worry about schools dealing with budget cuts. There are certainly more drug use when people face hard times," Mr. Klein said. Mr. Moonves answered that he had absolutely nothing to do with MTV's programming, so he couldn't answer to whether their programming encouraged binge drinking on its reality shows. What about his other youth programming? "There are certain shows that do show drug use and alcohol accurately. After all, people are using them," he said.

Mr. Moonves' elegant wife, CBS anchor Julie Chen, was wearing a Jackie Kennedy-style knit suit. "I'm not sure, I got this wrong once and got in a lot of trouble," she said when I asked her who made it. "It also has a very pretty shirt underneath it." A friend came by and averred that the last time he had seen her, the press was talking to her. "And they still are now," she said with a laugh. I asked Ms. Chen if she though print was on its way out. "I love to hold a newspaper," she said.

She added, a bit ruefully, "When I worked for Nightline we used to do our research with clippings and a glue stick. That's the kind of thing I miss."

CBS had formed said independent panel months earlier, in the fall of 2004, in order to investigate the development, preparation and aftermath of Dan Rather and company’s flawed report on President Bush’s military service. The report had aired on 60 Minutes Wednesday on Sept. 8, 2004, a few months before the presidential election, and had subsequently embroiled the network in a scandal that came to be known as “Memogate.”

In his memo to the staff, Mr. Moonves summarized the findings of the 200-plus-page report, which the panel had completed five days earlier. Mr. Moonves noted that the panel had found that CBS reporters had rushed the piece about Mr. Bush’s military service onto the air. “The bottom line,” he wrote, was that much of the story had been “wrong, incomplete, or unfair.”

“I think it’s important to note, in the Panel’s own words, that ‘CBS News did not have any input or influence with respect to the findings of the Panel, other than to commit itself at the outset to make this Report public,’” Mr. Moonves wrote. “This Panel was truly independent, and remains so.”

Over the past year, as part of his $70 million lawsuit against his former employers, Dan Rather has repeatedly raised questions about the panel’s independence. During the first week of November, Mr. Rather’s legal team submitted a memorandum to the judge overseeing the case, which, in part, reiterated Mr. Rather’s allegation that the panel was little more than a PR operation for a news company more interested in protecting its reputation and currying favor with Republicans in Washington than in setting the record straight regarding President Bush’s military records.

In a response, dated Nov. 3, lawyers for CBS countered Mr. Rather’s latest criticisms of the panel. “The Panel was completely independent and conducted its investigation without the influence of CBS, as all the testimony in the case proves,” wrote lawyers for CBS.

But one set of internal CBS e-mails (which turned up in the discovery process and was recently made public) would seem to suggest that if CBS executives refrained from directly influencing the panel’s final report, they were certainly contemplating doing so on the eve of its publication.

The e-mail exchange took place between Andrew Heyward, then the president of CBS News, and Linda Mason, the CBS executive charged with acting as a liaison to the members of the panel. The date of the exchange was Dec. 17, 2004—a full 12 days before the panel would turn over its first “substantially completed draft” to certain CBS executives, including Mr. Moonves, for review prior to publication.

In the e-mail back-and-forth, Mr. Heyward and Ms. Mason appear to be engaging in a bit of preemptive damage control. “Even if they had to expand the summary, we should consider this option if the big doc is too destructive,” wrote Mr. Heyward. “[A]nd I wouldn’t hesitate to put that back on them—that they exceeded the mandate or violated our instruction to leave the organism alive after the cancer is removed.”

In a recent deposition with Mr. Rather’s lawyers (parts of which have now been made public), Mr. Heyward testified that he didn’t remember the details of the option that he and Ms. Mason were discussing in the e-mails. Nor did he recall if he had seen a draft of the panel’s report, prior to writing the e-mails. “I think Mr. Heyward is talking in general terms,” Ms. Mason testified during her deposition.

“Why are you having any conversations with Mr. Heyward at all if he was out of the loop on this one?” asked a lawyer for Mr. Rather later in the deposition.

“This isn’t about content,” said Ms. Mason. “This is about if we’re getting near the end, what are we going to do with it. Strategy.”

And so it is that CBS’s damage-control strategy concerning Mr. Rather, Mr. Bush and the Texas Air National Guard staggers forward, now entering … year five.

fgillette@observer.com

Movie macher Harvey Weinstein doesn’t do anything small, especially when it comes to his nuptials. Case in point: his wedding last weekend to fashion designer Georgina Chapman. After guests parked at a school near Mr. Weinstein’s waterfront Westport manse, they were shuttled to the home, where they found the Miramax mogul nattily clad in a Tom Ford tux—no doubt the result of a loving nudge from his new fashion-friendly wife, who reportedly looked stunning in a pleated, ivory tulle dress of her own design. While rocking out to the Gypsy Kings, partygoers noshed on eats catered by Nobu and Cipriani, who provided the Dover sole and veal osso buco. To cap off the festivities, fireworks were sent up over Long Island Sound. Accompanying the groom’s stylish duds were some big players from the fashion world: Anna Wintour, Glenda Bailey, Natalia Vodianova, Margherita Missoni, Helena Christensen, Jacquetta Wheeler, Carol Hamilton, Rachel Zoe and Karolina Kurkova. And while Bill Clinton, Sean “Diddy” Combs, George Clooney and God Almighty sent their regrets, there was plenty of Hollywood glitz, politico heft and media meat provided by Rupert Murdoch, Leslie Moonves, George Pataki, Andrew Cuomo, Renée Zellweger, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Anne Hathaway and Cameron Diaz.

Having a lower profile has myriad benefits. For example: When seating a dinner, a hostess will have no compunction about plonking me down me at her B table, near a drafty window, with all the interns and assistants. Again, let me reiterate, I’m not bitter. In fact, I love a good B table. This is where you’ll find a totally unique genre of celebrity. Yes, I’m talking about the sons and daughters of the rich and famous. Celeb spawn! It’s true! While you Oscar winners and moguls are quaffing couture wines at the A table, I am over at the B table, attempting to interfere with the minds of your children.

At B tables in the past few months I have met many fascinating young children of the damned, oops, I mean, the famous. CBS CEO Les Moonves’ daughter Sara and SoCal retailer Ron Herman’s daughter Jane—attractive and intelligent Vogue-ettes—spring easily to mind. (In the interests of full disclosure, it should be noted that this very newspaper has harbored a number of fancy-pants progeny, including the writer Tom Wolfe’s daughter, Alexandra, a.k.a. “Ali,” and at least one Kennedy.)

As an F-lister, I take pleasure in rubbing shoulders with these brats du jour. I understand that Tom Hanks’ daughter, Liz, is currently working at Vanity Fair, celeb spawn central. (John Edwards’ daughter Cate, and Marty Peretz’s daughter, Evgenia, a.k.a. “Bo,” have also breathed in Graydon Carter’s secondhand smoke.) I look forward to sipping eggnog with her at some upcoming holiday fete. Maybe she can give me some insights into exactly how it all works. Who is exploiting whom? Or is it all wildly symbiotic, i.e., we employ your progeny, you show up to our events and look as if you are really enjoying yourself!

What, you may well ask, is wrong with bit of back-scratching? Oh, nothing much, I suppose, unless you happen to be a working-class slag from a crap town, like me. As the spawn of clout-less parents, I cannot help wondering about the horrifying effect this rampant new nepotism might be having on that great old-fashioned American tradition, social mobility. Or to put it more simply: If I staggered into the New York job market today, would I be totally buggered?

Back in the day, fancy-pants people encouraged their kids to either take over the family business or enter some kind of respectable profession. Many offspring were allowed to do nothing. This latter was the best option: The intern and assistant positions were left wide open to us lumpen losers from nowhere.

And thus it was back when I managed to talk my way into a job at the Costume Institute under the great Diana Vreeland. She, along with Andy Warhol, was a great believer in exploiting cheap intern labor. During my tenure, she assembled a fabulously diverse group that included Cuban émigrés Ruben and Isabel Toledo (now an illustrator and a designer, respectively), yours truly and a Polish-Italian cab driver from Queens called Richard di Gussi Bugotski. Mr. di Gussi Bugotski was one of Mrs. V’s personal faves. The adoration was mutual: Every fall he would take a break from his day job and come and help DV install her legendary fashion exhibits. It’s impossible to imagine a bloke like Richard getting his oily Mephisto in the door today.

In fairness to the Condé Nasts and Hearsts of the world, the problem is not just with the institutions who hire the celeb spawn. The responsibility must be shared by the young-uns whose sights are set so relentlessly on trendy media jobs. Instead of joining the Peace Corps or learning how to remove cataracts, the children of the privileged have lowered their standards dramatically: The apotheosis of celeb-spawn ambition would appear to be having the opportunity to stand outside a red-carpet event—with ironed hair, Louboutins, head set and clipboard—and wave at their own parents. If they could expand their ambitions once more, it would allow common folk such as myself—I thank the Lord I was able to claw my way to the middle before this stuff started happening—to get a shot at those flossy-flossy jobs.

I hope this situation changes before Suri Cruise hurls herself into the job market. I am not optimistic. I have a horrible vision of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt seated next to me at some well-appointed B table about 15 years from now, looking the other way while I fish my ill-fitting dentures out of the soup.

Bon appétit!

He is Craig Carton, and his proudest moment on the New Jersey airwaves probably came in 2005, when a sitting Governor threatened to beat him up after Mr. Carton said that women like the Governor’s wife, who suffered from postpartum depression, “must be crazy in the first place” and needed medical marijuana to keep themselves from “putting their babies in the microwave.”

"At the end of the day, the integrity of our company and the respect that you feel for CBS becomes the most important consideration," CBS C.E.O. Les Moonves said when he fired Mr. Imus back in May, a noble sentiment that he apparently didn’t actually mean, given the primitive on-air caricaturing of minority groups that helped Mr. Carton make his name in the Garden State—and attract the kind of ratings that caught CBS’s eye.

But what is most dispiriting about Mr. Carton’s hiring is not CBS’s hypocrisy or even the fact that so vile and calculating a character has been rewarded with a top-market job and a lucrative contract. It’s that CBS’ decision marks the death of quality political conversation in a prime venue. For nearly two decades, Mr. Imus’ WFAN radio show served as a showcase for a cross-ideological mix of prominent and colorful political voices, with a mishmash of literary and sports figures tossed in for good measure. Rick Santorum would stop by just as frequently as Chris Dodd. Mary Matalin would praise the Bush administration in one segment, while Tom Oliphant would bury it in the next. The roster of guests—Tim Russert, John McCain, John Kerry, and Frank Rich were among the eclectic bunch of regulars‐was as politically diverse as it was relevant.

And almost always, the interviews made for compelling listening. Mr. Imus’ on-air sidekicks—the ones who recklessly egged him on when he launched into his notorious riff on the Rutgers women’s basketball team—would take a backseat and Mr. Imus would go one-on-one with his guest, treating them with a level of respect that would stun anyone who knows him solely by the Rutgers controversy. He gave them space to make their points and asked intelligent questions, displaying a political (or literary, for that matter) fluency that would surprise non-listeners.

But what made Imus interviews unique and enjoyable was the host’s readiness to sniff out spin and political posture and, when appropriate, to make his guests—master manipulators all—squirm with razor-sharp follow-ups. Chuck Schumer, for instance, appeared this spring as the scandal over the conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center was breaking. Mr. Schumer, the skilled attack dog, began rattling off his familiar castigations of the Bush administration and the G.O.P., laying the failures at their feet. But Mr. Imus, who had rained his own outrage on the G.O.P., refused to let Mr. Schumer treat the scandal as a political football.

Instead, he bore into him, demanding to know when he’d last visited Walter Reed, until Mr. Schumer sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t been since before the start of the Iraq War. When Mr. Schumer then noted that he’d visited veterans’ hospitals in New York and seen the conditions there and introduced bills to address it, Mr. Imus pointed out—and Mr. Schumer, reluctantly agreed—that he hadn’t actually accomplished anything. Finally, Mr. Imus reminded Mr. Schumer of his vote to authorize the Iraq War, then asked him why he wouldn’t “go over to Walter Reed…to see the consequence of your vote.”

“You know, probably I should have gone there,” Mr. Schumer finally confessed, having been shamed into putting the football away.

Variations of the Schumer episode played out on the Imus show regularly, with Democrats and Republicans alike. That was Mr. Imus at his best—not wed to either party or to a particular ideology, but simply channeling the listening audience’s fatigue with the condescension and hypocrisy of the political class. Guests who respected the maturity and intelligence of the audience came off well. Those who didn’t—well, again, there’s the Schumer example.

Mr. Imus’ downfall, of course, was what would transpire between guests, when he’d give free reign to his on-air sidekicks, a group of white men who’d perform skits and engage in banter that mainly relied on crude racial, ethnic and sexual stereotyping. When their antics would provoke media scrutiny, Mr. Imus’s crew invariably claimed that it was all in good fun—of the equal opportunity offending variety. But even to regular listeners, it was hardly clear that they were joking. Mostly, Mr. Imus would sit back and let them go at it, playfully objecting for show—not to actually put a stop to it. But other times—as he did on that fateful day when sidekick Bernard McGuirk began ridiculing the Rutgers team—he would join in.

But at least with Mr. Imus and his newsmaker interviews, CBS had half of a great show. In Mr. Carton, CBS has tapped someone who lacks Mr. Imus’ political I.Q. and who has, instead, built his entire broadcast career on the kind of cheap, grade school-level taunts and insults that were the calling card of Mr. Imus’s co-hosts.

Contrast, for example, Mr. Imus’s efforts to spotlight the plight of America’s wounded Iraq veterans with Mr. Carton’s signature political projects in New Jersey.

There was, for instance, his effort last year to identify and expose politicians who are gay, inviting listeners to provide tips and offering protection to gay elected officials if they would sign a statement that he promised to keep confidential. This was, of course, presented as a humorous exercise – which it was, for those who still think that the fact of someone’s sexual orientation is itself a punchline. There was also the time he waded into local politics in Edison, New Jersey, a township of about 90,000 people, many of whom are Asian immigrants. Several weeks before an election in 2005, Mr. Carton turned his attention to Jun Choi, a 34-year-old Korean-American who was running for mayor.

“Chinese should never dictate the outcome of an election!” Mr. Carton thundered, apparently confusing Mr. Choi’s ethnicity.

“Well, go to A.C. for a week and try and get a table,” the host continued, assuming a crude Chinese accent, “‘Ching-chong, ching-chong, ching-chong.’ You hit it on 17, you stupid bitch! The dealer's got a 5! I’m holding an 18. What're you hitting for?! You know?”

When a caller from Edison told Mr. Carton that he’d decided to leave town because “we’re being overrun,” Mr. Carton replied, “Damn Orientals and Indians!”

Mr. Choi, no doubt powered by the public backlash against Mr. Carton’s tirade, ended up winning an upset victory. But of Mr. Carton’s effort at vigilantism takes the cake. Earlier this year, as talk radio across the country embraced the crusade against illegal immigration, Mr. Carton inaugurated “Operation La Cucha Gotcha,” in which he deputized his listeners to report anyone they even suspected of being an illegal immigrant to authorities, creating a climate of hysterical scape-goating that surely intimidated many of New Jersey’s perfectly legal immigrants. Mr. Imus and Mr. Carton actually reached fairly similar, male-dominated audiences. But Mr. Imus, before he went off the air, treated his listeners to numerous interviews on the immigration debate, providing reasoned and informed dialogues on what has become an emotionally-explosive topic. Mr. Carton took that same topic and stoked his audience’s fears for ratings.

With Craig Carton, CBS will probably get the ratings it wants. But those who enjoy a touch of intelligence with their political talk would do well to look elsewhere.

With the lights down and all eyes up, the president of the most watched television station in America proudly proceeded to show off a clip from … YouTube.

Sure enough, not half an hour into their annual upfront presentation to advertisers, the CBS brass were busy spotlighting the work of “stewmurray47”—who several months ago had compiled a bunch of David Caruso one-liners from CSI: Miami into a YouTube-worthy video. Make that a CBS-upfront-worthy video!

“Content like that demonstrates just how dramatically our world has changed,” said Mr. Moonves.

Luckily for Mr. Moonves, the subset of the world known as network television hasn’t changed that much in recent years. To wit: last season for the fifth straight year, CBS won the overall ratings game. Mr. Moonves went on to note that CBS finished a close second in the 18 to 49 demos, just a smidgen behind “those Idol worshippers at Fox.”

The mood was celebratory.

Queen’s “We Will Rock You” pumped through the theater's sound system. A song-and-dance team performed a riff off a Sly & the Family Stone standard ("We want to thank you / for watching / CBS / again!") And an animated version of network sales guru JoAnn Ross appeared on screen, flying through virtual space.

“Just to be clear,” said Mr. Moonves. “The dollars she will be asking for will be very, very real.”

CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler took the baton from Mr. Moonves. She explained that thanks to the continued success of the network’s existing primetime lineup there wasn’t too much space for new shows. But with those limited opportunities, Ms Tassler said, CBS had decided to get edgy.

She summed up the subjects of the new programs thusly: geeks, Cubanos, kids, vampires, singers, and swingers. Sounds like good family entertainment to us!

Cue the nerds.

Ms. Tassler announced that on Monday night, CBS will be adding some geek-humor to their lineup with a show called The Big Bang Theory—a situational comedy revolving around what happens when a hot girl (played by Kaley Cuoco) moves into an apartment across the hall from two dweeby roommates (Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons). Spoiler alert: Stephen Hawking jokes ensue.

Ms. Tassler kept moving.

On Tuesday nights this year, CBS will debut a new drama dubbed Cane, starring Jimmy Smits as the head of a Cuban American family that, having made a fortune in the rum business, wades into the tumultuous world of sugar-cane wheeling and dealing.

After a highlight reel, Mr. Smits sauntered onto the stage surrounded by his fellow cast members. Despite all his years on successful network shows, including The West Wing, NYPD Blue, and L.A. Law, he had never attended an upfront.

“I’m the 40-year-old upfront virgin!” said Mr. Smits. “Okay, the 50-year-old upfront virgin.”

Like a true virgin, Mr. Smits exited promptly.

Before long, the audience was being treated to a preview of CBS’ new, Wednesday night reality show: Kid Nation, wherein producers (and, presumably, lawyers) take 40 kids (ages 8 to 15) to a ghost town in New Mexico and set them loose, sans parents, for 40 days. Along the way, there’s a lot of crying, and contests, and latrine cleaning. And, well, more crying.

For one great moment, Carnegie Hall was filled with the image of a handful of dusty teenagers, standing around a table in a Western-style saloon doing shots of root beer.

Somewhere in TV-land Al Swearengen was shaking his head.

From there, Ms. Tassler went on to introduce Moonlight, a new drama about a love-torn vampire with a heart of gold, and Viva Laughlin, a musical set in a Nevada casino and featuring Hugh Jackman as a big-haired fellow who likes to gamble and sing.

And what about the, um, big-haired fellows who like to swing?

Towards the end of her presentation, Ms. Tassler introduced a show that will appear on CBS mid-season called Swingtown. Set in 1976, the drama centers around the horndogging habits of a swinging airline pilot, his randy wife, and their new next-door neighbors who may or may not be prone to experimentation. The montage was jam packed with polyester and heavy petting.

“I might need a cigarette after that,” concluded Ms. Tassler.

And we might need another shot of root beer!

At one point during the festivities, America's Next Top Model host Tyra Banks led an uncomfortable one-woman pep rally for the hot new network's hot new logo. "Y'all know I'm all into fierceness, and, like, visuals," she shouted, "and the new logo is hot."

A magazine editor sitting nearby observed that this superhot new logo, which spells out "CW" in thick, curvy lowercase, is the exact mirror image of the logo for CNN.

[Continued after the jump]

Moving on! (The CW crew spent many months studying its prime demographic, 18-to-34-year-olds, and apparently learned, among other things, that they have short attention spans). The other fruits of this research were displayed in a lightning-quick "documentary" that profiled three members of the CW demo. Jennifer, 19, explained: "I'm all about jeans right now! They really go with every outfit. They're, like, the perfect accessory." Jason, whose age passed too quickly to note, loves old people--perhaps an extended metaphor for the relationship between CW's audience and that of parent company CBS--and his Xbox. Jill, 32, is a stay-at-home mom. Her interests include diapers and furniture.

This is a group of people, CW programming chief Dawn Ostroff explained, who are wired, creative, and who all aspire to low levels of fame. "Call it a psychographic side effect of reality TV," she said.

After a performance by the Black Eyed Peas, whose rewritten version of "Get It Started" is the new network's scorching new theme song, Ms. Ostroff got it started. The CW is all about "innovation, participation, connection, community," she said, over and over. Formed in January from minor networks the WB and UPN, the CW line-up includes a mishmash of those networks' most successful shows and two new programs. The schedule appears to have been constructed on the principle of demographic segregation.

"Tuesday is Girls' Night!" The WB's Gilmore Girls will air at 8 p.m. and UPN's Veronica Mars will air at 9. At the news of the latter pick-up, one section of the audience--Tampax ad execs?--erupted in applause.

No other night of the week has a catchy name, but each has an implicit audience profile. Monday, with 7th Heaven and a new show called Runaway, is for families. Thursday, with Smallville and Supernatural, is for boys. Friday, with Smackdown!, is for the part of the demographic who watch wrestling. And Sunday, with All of Us, Girlfriends, and Girlfriends spin-off The Game, is for black people.

To underscore this scheduling strategy, Chris Rock, the creator of the autobiographical critical darling Everybody Hates Chris, which starts the Sunday line-up, arrived onstage. To sell more ads, he said, "Chris will now be played by a white girl."

"You know, Les Moonves picked little Chris," he added. "I had another one, but Les Moonves said 'No. I know how to pick black kids.'"

The advertising executives who had filled Madison Square Garden laughed. A sea of well-off, middle aged, white people, they had spent the previous hour like a group of scientists regarding a dissection at Area 51. Abruptly, Mr. Rock switched into their language.

"You better spend some motherfuckin money!," he yelled and walked offstage.

--Rebecca Dana

Anyway, the announcer told the packed house, "everybody who's anybody is already here."

Such as Katie Couric! "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" the new CBS Evening News anchor would ask from the center of the main stage. "Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate."

It's Upfront Week, ladies and germs! The posturing, the spinning, the kvelling over bad shows that are likely already cancelled--all that is the excuse to assemble en masse and tell inside jokes.

But first, the business. JoAnn Ross, the head of ad sales for CBS, started things off by explaining this would be a very different upfront season, because "there are now five, not six, networks."

That may come as news to Peter Chernin, Roger Ailes and the rest of the Fox executives who had spent Tuesday morning presenting the fall schedule for My Network TV, the sixth network, which News Corp created when the WB and UPN merged earlier this year.

Ross then did a joke about platform agnosticism, involving video feed from a webcam trained on a platter of shrimp cocktail at Tavern on the Green. Technology is big. "We are branching out into what we call the 'outernet,'" Ross said.

Moonves came out next to accentuate the positive--"This is our fourth consecutive year as the most-watched network...you're in good hands with CBS...think CBS first..."--then moved speedily on to shtick. The giant screen behind him broadcast a "CBS Evening News Special Report," in which Bob Schieffer broke the "news" that Moonves would not be digitally inserted into a humorous short film for this year's presentation, as he has been, to great comedic effect, in years past.

"You're lucky you got that one," Moonves said after the film, which featured a montage of past digital shorts. "The other choice was me and Bob Schieffer in our version of Brokeback Mountain. We flipped a coin to see who was gonna do the Heath Ledger part."

Next, quarterbacks Eli and Peyton Manning chatted onstage with Phil Simms and Jim Nantz, as a way of emphasizing that CBS has the Super Bowl next year. "Thanks guys!" Mr. Moonves said as they walked offstage. "Boy, those are four tall gentiles."

More of this, then CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler came out to talk details. The CBS schedule is so full of successful shows, including six "freshman" programs the network renewed from last season, that she had very little of actual substance to say. CBS picked up four shows--one comedy it will add to its Monday night comedy block and three dramas, one for Tuesday, one for Wednesday and one for Thursday.

Tassler took breaks between presenting nights of the schedule to liven the mood. After Tuesday, she did a bit about chasing demographics, suggesting, among other things, that CBS was planning a telenovela version of its hit crime procedural, called "CSI-AY-AY"). After Wednesday, Mariah Carey came out and sang.

Noticably absent were jokes about Zucker, who used to have a healthy rivalry with Moonves, until the former lost. It was not long ago that CBS was a miserly old network at the bottom of the ratings heap, with no pop stars singing at its upfront and nothing especially to sing about. But on Wednesday, Moonves and his team didn't seem to have the energy to tweak their rival networks. As the cast of Jersey Boys had sung in the upfront presentation's opening number, to the tune of Big Girls Don't Cry, "CBS is where you'll find the hits."

Moonves and his public relations chief Gil Schwartz led an exodus to the afterparty at Tavern on the Green. A CBS photographer tried to take a picture of the merry band marching through Central Park. Smiling, Mr. Schwartz flipped the photographer the bird.

What else has befallen our favorite medium of late? Janet Jackson’s left breast, for one thing. For others: Two groups of people were marooned on desert islands (the casts of CBS’s Survivor and ABC’s Lost) and made their respective networks mints in the process; NBC was marooned in broadcasting, losing Katie Couric, Friends, Frasier, a billion dollars and its grip on Thursday nights; CBS News screwed up big time, a few times; the anchors of all the major-network newscasts left their chairs, none particularly of his own volition; Fox got American Idol; NBC president Jeff Zucker got promoted, and promoted, and promoted; CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves got Julie Chen and half of Viacom.

Mr. Carter breaks no big news in Desperate Networks, and what little nuggets he offers have already been picked over by the blogosphere or rendered obsolete by the passage of time. We could probably do without the sections on Katie Couric’s mental dalliance with the prospect of becoming—get this—the anchor of the CBS Evening News. But such are the challenges of media writing. Television itself is ephemeral, and daily journalism about television has all the longevity of a gnat. A book full of daily journalism about television, therefore, might as well be printed on sand.

There’s no greater evidence of this than Mr. Carter’s titular allusion to—and obvious fascination with—a little show called Desperate Housewives. He uses the boffo Sunday-night soap opera as a prime example of the vagaries of the TV business—which is a business, make no mistake, that he loves. Before it was picked up by ABC, every network, including Lifetime, passed on Desperate Housewives. Along the way, Marc Cherry, the creator, was duped by his agent, humiliated by the industry and insulted by everyone, including his mom. Then, as has happened many times in the industry (and so likewise in the book), a prescient executive had the good sense to champion his cause. Teri Hatcher signed on and the show made it to air, drew 25 million viewers for its first-season finale, lost its buzz and faded into the background—all before copies of Desperate Networks hit the shelves. It must have seemed like a really cool, relevant title when Mr. Carter came up with it, though.

So why write, publish, buy or read a book like this in the first place?

A recent Nielsen study of television viewership—about as trustworthy as a General Mills study of cereal adoration—suggested that the average American household watches eight hours of TV a day. A day! What else do Americans spend that much time doing? Not working, not eating, not going to movies, certainly not reading newspapers, not exercising, not praying, not shopping, not attending political rallies, not balancing checkbooks, not yammering on cell phones, not contemplating the meaning of life. Television is a pre-eminent cultural force: our most ubiquitous medium, certainly, and our most influential.

But much of it is so bad, you object. Exactly!

All of which is to say that television deserves good journalism. This is the implicit message of Desperate Networks, which as far as I can tell contains no explicit message other than “It’s difficult to find a hit show” (which it is—really difficult—and that’s why the networks are “desperate”). Mr. Carter is not a defender of the medium he’s covered for so long; nor an extoller, like some, of its innumerable virtues. He writes about television for the same reason most of us watch it: because it’s full of beautiful people, eccentric characters, exorbitant sums of money, familiar plotlines, canned humor, suspense, betrayal, sex. All the good stuff.

A longtime TV reporter for The Times and the author of The Late Shift (1994)—a book about how Jay Leno maneuvered his way into hosting the Tonight show that was turned into a grotesque HBO film—Mr. Carter has more access to television people, and probably cares more about television itself, than anyone in the industry. A network executive—who’s quoted favorably, anonymously and at length in the book—once told me that what separates Mr. Carter from all the other reporters on the beat is that he’s actually seen every single show on every network schedule. While some reporters may deign to watch a screener of whatever pap is coming up on the WB, Mr. Carter typically has favorite characters, an opinion about the sound editing and concerns with particular plot points.

He plainly respects TV people and TV, even in its seediest forms, and this is why his work is valuable. He devotes, for example, many studious, deferential pages of Desperate Networks to one Mike Darnell, the stringy-haired Fox executive who created Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? and a thousand other cringe-inducing programs in which fame-seeking morons sacrifice most of their dignity or nearly their lives. Mr. Carter loves Mike Darnell. He loves everyone, really, especially Leslie Moonves. One of the few television people who haven’t yet torn through a galley of the book asked me recently who its villains are. I’ve only found two: the cast of Friends, who are greedy jerks, and the corporate overlords of Disney, who are cheap.

Otherwise, according to Bill Carter, it’s a business full of smart, aspirational, creative, occasionally vicious but generally well-meaning individuals forever at the mercy of timing and luck. The networks may be desperate, but the people who run them and the shows they produce are reflections of America itself—full of enterprise, optimism and populist spunk. And if not, as Jeff Zucker used to say in the control room of the Today show, “Who gives a shit? It’s only television.”

Rebecca Dana writes NYTV for The Observer.

C’mon, folks, you can relax. We all know that network news isn’t about news anymore; it’s big-bucks showbiz. How else to explain ABC’s recent Primetime Live story, entitled “Outrage After Teen Gets 10 Years For Oral Sex With a Girl?” If someone had pitched Ted Koppel a story about Angelina Jolie finding her “purpose” in life, he’d have run screaming from the room. Thanks to you, Mr. and Ms. Network Honcho, missing teenager Natalee Holloway enjoys better name recognition than the president of Pakistan, old what’s-his-name.

If Daily Show host Jon Stewart can fess up about anchoring the “fake news,” why can’t you admit that you care more about Q ratings than what’s happening in Qatar? When an anchor is judged by how well he cries on cue rather than by the content of his questions; when research dictates that NBC anchor Tom Brokaw snares a bigger audience if he reads the news standing than sitting; when stories formerly relegated to the underbelly of tabloid TV routinely worm their way into that sacrosanct 6:30 p.m. time slot, it tells you the audience isn’t clamoring for a great journalist.

When I was an NBC network news correspondent 15 years ago, the highly mined border between the entertainment and news divisions was already as smudged as the mascara under Tammy Faye Bakker’s eyes. Still, the sanctimonious posturing of news execs channeling Ted Baxter proliferated even as it became clear that the heyday of the deified news anchor was done. Journalistic credibility crashed as TV news heads vied with Washington lobbyists for dead last on the credibility scale.

Of course, when you’re trying to rack up ratings in a culture that cares more about the travails of Michael Jackson than the travesties in Darfur, a story like NBC Dateline’s “Bed Bugs Are Back” transmogrifies the meaning of hard news. Network news can only be as good as the audience demands. And, these days, the audience—rendered catatonic by a steady diet of cheesy daytime talk shows and prime-time reality programs—barely differentiates between a story on Entertainment Tonight and one on Meet the Press.

Which is why Ms. Couric, who’s done everything from dancing with actor Antonio Banderas to chirping her way through “How to Give Your Garage a Makeover,” was tapped to shore up the sagging springs of the CBS Evening News anchor chair. She has elevated fluff-as-fact to an art form.

Besides, as the feverish spinmeisters are gushing, Ms. Couric—who cut her journalistic teeth as a Pentagon reporter—is simply returning to her hard-news roots. Not to mention that those horn-rimmed glasses she’s been sporting translate into instant gravitas and are bound to add to the suspense of her CBS debut. (I can hear the office pools forming: Will she or won’t she wear the glasses?)

Even more important than her ability to ask tough questions, Ms. Couric is, above all, likable. No wonder veteran newsman Bob Schieffer, whose intellect is eclipsed by a charisma bypass, lost out to the terminally congenial Ms. Couric. Still, kudos are pouring in to CBS for taking a flyer on her in the high-stakes network anchor wars. Voice-of-God anchor Walter Cronkite lapsed into lapdog lingo when he praised the “great talents” of a “very beautiful lady.” But it was Today show colleague Ann Curry’s tribute—“I feel like my sister is going off to college”—that really put this landmark event in broadcast news history into perspective.

Not surprisingly, CBS chairman Les Moonves started romancing Ms. Couric even as he declared his intentions to radically rehab the Evening News. So, despite former MSNBC president Erik Sorenson’s protestations that many of Ms. Couric’s talents aren’t transferable, that’s exactly what Mr. Moonves has in mind to woo the coveted 25-to-54-year-old audience demographic. The average network news watcher is a myopic 59, so you’ll know Ms. Couric is making headway when the makers of Viagra, Centrum Silver and other elixirs for the AARP set take their ad revenues elsewhere.

Whatever CBS has in store for Ms. Couric, I wish her all the best. But I confess that I felt a wave of disappointment when word leaked that she’d been hired. It wasn’t because I don’t like her—I was just secretly hoping that Jon Stewart would get the gig. Or that maybe Mr. Moonves would really shake things up and install American Idol malcontent Simon Cowell. Now that might have helped resurrect my faith in the future of network news. Besides, it would have been a lot more honest.