Lara Logan -> “She got everything she wanted, always, even when she was wrong.”
http://nymag.com/news/features/lara-logan-cbs-news-2014-5/"In fact, one way of looking at Lara Logan’s rise at CBS is as an antidote to the network’s perceived bias. As a journalist, Logan is a product of the Bush years, her career defined by America’s Middle East wars and the military personnel and military contractors who were her sources and friends. For 60 Minutes, she delivered the kind of muscular reports that inoculated CBS against charges of a leftist agenda following the Rather incident, especially valuable in the patriotic climate after 9/11. She was part of the military culture, taking some of the same risks, imbibing its worldview. She also happened to have a telegenic sexual charisma, a highly useful attribute for a woman who wants to succeed in TV journalism. After Fager became chairman of the news division in 2011, he made Logan a permanent member of 60 Minutes, partly on the merit of her profiles of Navy seals and war generals, and partly out of corporate deference to Moonves’s enthusiasm for her."
= new reply since forum marked as read
My surface impression of MOONVES has been positive, basically because of LETTERMAN. So he was her original booster. This is this FAGER. The other one/replacement is Clarissa WARD. In *HUGH!1* business organizations, things become unmanageable, under the mantra of "It's the nature of the beast."
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.... Meanwhile, financial pressures and the speed of the news cycle were changing 60 Minutes. To gain exclusive interviews and make news, Fager began to rely more on books and movies as news pegs, including those produced by parent company CBS Corporation, which owns book publisher Simon & Schuster. This trend fit Fager’s emphasis on prebuilt access stories that captured the news and held on to the young-male demographic that was watching the NFL games leading into the program.
“Jeff believes in popular TV,” says a colleague. “The part of the business that involves reporting scary stories, on which you have to spend time and resources on investigations and fact-checking and sources—all of that annoys the hell out of him.”
In 2011, Moonves named Fager chairman of CBS News, calling him the “quintessential insider.” Fager would also oversee 60 Minutes, an unprecedented dual role. Fager chose a handpicked loyalist, Bill Owens, Scott Pelley’s friend and former producer, to run the day-to-day operations as executive editor. None of this meant that good news segments weren’t being made. But it meant that the institution had changed in a significant way: As chairman, Fager now attended regular meetings with Moonves, a situation that some CBS producers I spoke with felt implicitly compromised 60 Minutes’ independence from corporate influence. And Fager had also consolidated his own power. “Fager has gotten rid of any structural oversight,” says a former 60 Minutes producer. “He doesn’t like people challenging him. There’s nobody to go to if you have a problem.” ....
It was around this time that her political beliefs began to be expressed more openly. When the late Michael Hastings wrote a story in Rolling Stone about General Stanley McChrystal, exposing offhand criticisms of Barack Obama over Afghanistan and leading to the general’s ouster, Logan went on CNN to defend the general—and attack Hastings as a dishonest reporter who had tricked McChrystal. “I don’t go around in my personal life pretending to be one thing and then being something else,” she said. “I find it egregious that anyone would do that in their professional life.
“Michael Hastings,” she added, “has never served his country the way Commander McChrystal has.” ....
And what about Les Moonves? A well-placed source at CBS suggests that he has soured on Logan. Through a spokesman, Moonves declined to comment.
So Lara Logan may, or may not, return in the fall season. Either way, the show must go on. Waiting in the wings is a new up-and-comer. Attractive, blonde, fluent in three foreign languages. Everybody is talking about 34-year-old Clarissa Ward. “Jeff’s very high on her,” says a 60 Minutes producer.
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