After I learned about Wallace’s appearance at the Brady Center fundraiser, I sent an email to Vaughn Ververs, the public editor of CBS’s Public Eye blog. I asked him if Wallace’s appearance and comments had violated any network rules. He followed up with both Wallace and Linda Mason, the senior vice president for standards at the news organization. Wallace never expressed any remorse for his appearance, and said the whole thing was meant to be a joke. According to Mason, the network policy states if someone has become identifiable with an issue, they are no longer allowed to report on that issue for CBS. After investigating, Linda Mason said the network says if Wallace suggests a story about gun control in the future, and the network determines there’s a conflict of interest, they will reject the story. As Ververs put it, “I take that to mean we won’t be seeing Mr. Wallace doing any more stories involving Second Amendment issues.” I’d like to think the network failed to see the humor in Wallace’s appearance as well.
Ververs did a tremendous job in bringing this story to light, but it’s a shame that he’s the only CBS employee willing to talk about this. Mike Wallace prides himself in asking tough questions, yet he’s unwilling to face questions about his own actions. Now that Wallace is making the rounds of TV shows again, I’ll be putting in another request to his publicist. Maybe this time Wallace will realize his hypocrisy. You can’t demand to interview the President as a journalist while you stonewall the media as a news figure.