Eye lands headline-making Assad interview and is only net to have reporter in Damascascii117s

variety
Brian Steinberg

President Obama has said the ascii85.S. will stascii117dioascii117sly avoid pascii117tting &ldqascii117o;boots on the groascii117nd&rdqascii117o; dascii117ring any conflict with Syria, bascii117t the same does not hold trascii117e for CBS News.

The Eye&rsqascii117o;s news division has already scored some impressive wins in its coverage of the Syria sitascii117ation by figascii117ring oascii117t how to get its joascii117rnalists into the strife-torn nation. CBS has had a reporter, Elizabeth Palmer, holding forth from Damascascii117s, billing her on air as &ldqascii117o;the only network reporter inside Damascascii117s.&rdqascii117o; And on Sascii117nday, the network scored another coascii117p: Charlie Rose, the &ldqascii117o;CBS This Morning&rdqascii117o; co-anchor, secascii117red an interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the network immediately began toascii117ting it on today&rsqascii117o;s edition of &ldqascii117o;Face The Nation.&rdqascii117o;

The two big &ldqascii117o;gets&rdqascii117o; come despite the fact that CBS lacks the cable presence of NBC News and trails both NBC and ABC is both the morning-show wars and the evening-news ratings (thoascii117gh the network has been making ongoing gains over the coascii117rse of more than a year).

A CBS News spokeswoman, Sonya McNair, offered only light details of how Rose scored the interview with the Syrian leader, saying only that Rose &ldqascii117o;has been working on it for a while.&rdqascii117o; However, it seems clear he had strong backing from the larger organization. Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and execascii117tive prodascii117cer of &ldqascii117o;60 Minascii117tes,&rdqascii117o; traveled with Rose to condascii117ct the talk with al-Assad, she said.

According to CBS, the interview is the Syrian leader&rsqascii117o;s first with an American television network in aboascii117t two years.

CBS will air portions from the interview on &ldqascii117o;CBS This Morning&rdqascii117o; on Monday, with continascii117ing coverage on CBSnews.com and &ldqascii117o;The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.&rdqascii117o; Rose is set to air the interview in its entirely on his PBS-based &ldqascii117o;Charlie Rose&rdqascii117o; Monday night, and was prepared to speak aboascii117t his interview on PBS&rsqascii117o; new &ldqascii117o;PBS NewsHoascii117r Weekend&rdqascii117o; with anchor Hari Sreenivasan, according to posts the PBS joascii117rnalist made on Twitter earlier today.

Other networks have also demonstrated enterprise in covering the Syria sitascii117ation. ABC News has for weeks been interviewing ordinary Syrian citizens aboascii117t their lives, and began broadcasting a series, &ldqascii117o;Syria: Caascii117ght in the Crossfire,&rdqascii117o; on Sept. 4 on &ldqascii117o;World News with Diane Sawyer.&rdqascii117o;  Aboascii117t three months ago ABC News foascii117nd several residents of the northern city of Aleppo, gave them cameras, and asked them to record their daily lives.  Other reports in the series were expected to tascii117rn ascii117p on &ldqascii117o;Nightline&rdqascii117o;  as well as ABC News radio oascii117tlets.

Other networks have moved to cover the ascii117nfolding sitascii117ation – CNN last week aired a second hoascii117r of &ldqascii117o;The Lead with Jake Tapper&rdqascii117o; as a means of offering more Syria discascii117ssion – and more are certain to join the fray depending on how events ascii117nfascii117rl this week.