Center for Public Integrity Responds with Epic Smack Down after ABC News tries to Retroactively Steal Credit from Investigative Journalist Pulitzer Winner Chris Hamby

By Nate Thayer

April 16, 2014

On Monday April 14, the excellent investigative journalist, Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity, won the Pulitzer Prize for best Investigative Reporting for the year.

On April 15, ABC News President Ben Sherwood sent a letter to the Center for Public Integrity’s Executive Director William Buzenberg demanding CPI ask the Pulitzer Prize committee to retroactively add the names of ABC  TV and the two ABC journalists, Brian Ross and Matt Moskto,  to be credited as winners of  the Pulitzer award.

On April 16, today, the Center for Public Integrity fired back with a slam dunk rebuttal that knocked out ABC Television and their corporate PR bullying threats.

How embarrassing for the ABC reporters Brian Ross and Matt Moskto.

And what a disgrace for ABC News and an indictment of the PR self promotion driven corporate culture it has been reduced to.

Mr Sherwood began his career as a journalist, but long ago abandoned serious journalism in favor of the corporate culture that has driven quality news into its mass grave.

Sherwood was named last month ” as co-chairman, Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, in charge of not only the ABC broadcast network and its local television stations, but also its entertainment cable outlets including the Disney Channel.

ABC reporters Brian Ross and Matt Moskto should immediately stand up for the integrity of the institution of serious journalism and publicly distance themselves by denouncing the shameless and demeaning PR efforts of their corporate bosses.

Their reputations are at stake if they do not.

Kudos to Center for Public Integrity and its executive director Bill Buzenberg for standing up for Chris Hamby’s excellent work and well deserved Pulitzer and for publicly refusing to let ABC get away with this. He wrote to the ABC News corporate head asking them “to gather your team; look Matt (Moskto), Brian (Ross) and everyone else in the eye and ask them to describe to you exactly what they did that was so crucial beyond producing fine TV segments. Ask them to point you to where in the 25,000 words comprising the original three-part series they made unique contributions.”

Buzenberg further explained in comments to the poynter Institute that “ABC has a very very inflated idea of their role in this investigation. The facts are the facts. The CPI’s Chris Hamby wrote the stories that were submitted to the (Pulitzer) committee.”

CPI reporter Chris Hamby read 1,500 medical cases and reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents to prepare his reports.

Buzenberg said ABC is “ex-post facto trying to grab” a piece of the Pulitzer by using “a big PR effort”  later telling Poynter that “Three times ABC SVP for communications Jeffrey W. Schneider threatened me and the Center saying they would make this very “messy” for us unless they got what they wanted, which is a share of the investigation prize that they did not earn under the Pulitzer rules.”

The Center for Public Integrity was created by former American television investigative reporters who had grown fed up with the corporate interference in so-called serious television news journalism. The Center for Public Integrity, founded by former CBS 60 Minutes producer Charles “Chuck” Lewis, has a well deserved reputation as the preeminent watchdog on corporate and political corruption in Washington which is unimpeachable and impeccable.

The CPI responded swiftly to ABC News flaccid attempt at corporate bullying. The Center for Public Integrity’s Executive Director William Buzenberg responded to ABC News President Ben Sherwood’s April 15 letter demanding PR credit for ABC News for work they never performed with the following April 16 public missive.

“Dear Bill,” Buzenberg began. “Thank you for your letter of last night…. I have to assume this is all part of an unfortunate PR campaign by ABC News.”

Buzenberg excoriated ABC News for its absence of  “honesty and moral uprightness” and said” ABC is seeking to take credit for a large body of work that it did not produce” and added “with certainty” that “ABC would not have received any of the accolades….without the Center’s deep investigative work. In short, without The Center for Public Integrity, this project would not exist. ABC would not have anything to show.”

This project grew out of previous reporting Chris had done on black lung, and he has become a knowledgeable authority on the subject, devoting years of his life to understanding the disease and the benefits system and bringing these powerful stories to light.

“The Center is prepared to show in great detail how little ABC’s Brian Ross and Matt Mosk understood about even the most fundamental concepts and key facts and how they repeatedly turned to Chris (Hamby) to advise them or, in some instances, to do their work for them,” wrote Buzenberg in a letter today, April 16 to the ABC News head,” adding “scripts leading up to the airdate of the ‘Nightline’ segment show serious factual inaccuracies by ABC and a continued lack of understanding of basic, key concepts. If not for Chris’ intervention, upon finally being shown the scripts, ABC would have found itself facing withering, legitimate criticism.”

The fact is that real investigative journalism often takes years of singular focus, is expensive, and requires resources and money that the big corporate media refuses to support. That is exactly what Chris Hamby of the CPI did–devoted years of work to understand and obtain the detailed facts of this Pulitzer prize worthy and winning story.

Here are links to Chris Hamby’s Pulitzer winning efforts:

 http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/10/29/13619/behind-story-breathless-and-burdened

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/10/30/13637/johns-hopkins-medical-unit-rarely-finds-black-lung-helping-coal-industry-defeat

Here is the letter from CPI to the Pulitzer Committee regarding ABC News’s self degrading and specious attempt to to take credit for other’s work:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1114360-gissler-letter.html

But the ABC Television News outfits of the world will shamelessley unleash their full corporate resources to take credit for the successful efforts of others that they attempt to attach themselves to.

ABC NEWS HAS A LONG RECORD OF TRYING TO TAKE CREDIT FOR OTHER JOURNALISTS WORK

I can personally attest to this not being the first time ABC News/Nightline has vigorously tried to be corporate bullies by using such shameful behavior to take credit for the work of others.

It is the dirty little secret that American television news has degenerated into an exercise of non-substantive hype, relying on other people’s work which they then try and take credit for.

On July 25, 1997, I was the first outsider to meet Pol Pot since he killed 1.8 million people 20 years before.

It was, for a couple of days, the biggest story in the world. I, as a freelance journalist, had the only photographs and video and eyewitness account that existed since Pol Pot did what he did.

It was a tumultuous few days of dealing with the very worst of what the big media companies represented.

After ten years of reporting from the jungles of Cambodia, I emerged with the interview, photographs, and videotape. ABC News and ABC Nightline and Ted Koppel flew to Bangkok to view my video and signed a written contract promising to use the video for “North American video rights only for 7 days.” ABC News corporate bosses told Koppel “to sign whatever Thayer asks for–our lawyers will deal with it later. He is just a freelancer. Give him whatever he wants. We can bankrupt him if he objects.”

As soon as ABC News and ABC Nightline–which had exactly zero correspondents in Southeast Asia–got a hold of my videotape of Pol Pot, their PR team went to work. ABC created frame grabs from the video, stamped “ABC” credit on the photographs and distributed them personally to numerous news outfits, including the AP and the New York Times, where it appeared on their front page above the fold credited to ABC only, before I had even written or published my own story. ABC placed my photos on their website crediting themselves with having taken the image.

ABC TV stolen pictures frame grab from my copyrighted work. Count them–four separate credits demanding ABC be given credit for photographs taken when ABC did b not even have a staff person in all of Southeast Asia. This photo was hand delivered to the New York Times, The AP and posted on ABC’s website

My pictures, credited to ABC TV, were published on the front pages of hundreds of newspapers courtesy of ABC News around the world, my video footage was distributed by ABC around the globe, and my story was written in virtually every major news organ on earth based on transcripts provided by ABC News and credited to ABC News, before I actually had written my own story, which was later published with the integrity and dignity and seriousness it deserved in my excellent publication, the Far Eastern Economic Review. 

ABC distributed transcripts of the trial of Pol Pot I had made and allowed other news organizations to view the video tape with strict instructions to credit ABC for the images and story. When I objected, ABC News executives refused to pay me anything, including the amount for the written agreement for use of the videotape only, unless and until I signed a legal release that they had done nothing wrong and ABC News demanded I promise not to take legal action against them.

I refused.

Nine months later, in April 1998, I, as a “correspondent for ABC Nightline” –along with numerous ABC “journalists who I had never heard of little less met nor who had ever set foot anywhere near Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge– won the Peabody award–the broadcasting journalism equivalent of the Pulitzer– for interviewing Pol Pot.

Ted Koppel and ABC executives called me up, nervously, to congratulate me.

I said “Fuck you! I am going to go to the Peabody awards ceremony and refuse the award and publicly explain what unethical thieves ABC are.”

I then had my invitation to the Peabody award ceremony–of which I was a winner that year–rescinded, was banned and escorted out of the Waldorf Astoria hotel banquet room by security guards at the behest of ABC News.

Ted Koppel accepted the award in my place.

After seven years in court fighting ABC, I won, sort of. But I was a freelancer and ABC knew they could bankrupt me for objecting. It was the exact intention of ABC: to make my life as miserable and expensive and distracted as possible to punish me for objecting to bald plagiarism, fraud, and theft–to do what they are trying to do to Chris Hamby and CPI. 

Here are links to my detailing and objecting to ABC News doing exactly to me what they are attempting to do to the Center for Public Integrity this week:

http://www.nate-thayer.com/how-ted-koppel-and-abc-tv-tried-to-steal-my-life-work/

http://www.nate-thayer.com/abc-news-and-ted-koppel-owe-an-apology-for-soiling-the-integrity-of-freelancers-and-the-institution-of-journalism/

Another ABC frame grab of my still pictures, taken after 15 years of work, which they distributed to the planet and took credit for

The Center for Public Integrity’s Buzenberg pulled no punches this week in his swift response to ABC News trying to use their corporate machine to muscle into to taking credit for real journalists actual work.

Buzenberg, who represents one of the finest investigative journalism organizations that exists,did his homework, including a response from the Pulitzer prize committee staff administrator to ABC News corporate executives who have infiltrated and destroyed the integrity of ABC News as an news organization of any integrity.

“These are the facts, as confirmed under the very strict Pulitzer Prize rules by the Pulitzer Administrator Sig Gissler again just yesterday:

Bill: I’ve reviewed the entry again. It is overwhelmingly Hamby’s work and was entered by the center in conformance with our rules on limited partnerships (SEE BELOW). The rules expressly state that the eligible entity must do the preponderance of the work; specific elements produced by the ineligible entity (such as ABC video) cannot be entered; and if there is a prize it will go ONLY to the eligible organization that submitted the work.  

So, based on the entry, the prize to the Hamby alone is warranted.  
Best, SG “

Buzenberg’s public response to ABC News only got better, exposing the normal inner workings of so-called television investigative reporting.

“Chris Hamby lived and breathed this investigation almost exclusively for a year. ABC dropped in periodically over the course of a few months between work on many other stories.

The Center is prepared to show in great detail how little ABC’s Brian Ross and Matt Mosk understood about even the most fundamental concepts and key facts and how they repeatedly turned to Chris to advise them or, in some instances, to do their work for them.

Draft scripts leading up to the airdate of the “Nightline” segment show serious factual inaccuracies by ABC and a continued lack of understanding of basic, key concepts. If not for Chris’ intervention, upon finally being shown the scripts, ABC would have found itself facing withering, legitimate criticism.

ABC has never acknowledged its extraordinary reliance on Chris for even the most basic information about this highly technical and complex story. Chris, of course, has never complained to ABC about this, despite repeated statements by ABC on air, online and in press releases that erroneously made it appear as if ABC was the driving force behind this project.

It is incredibly insulting for ABC to not only fail to acknowledge Chris’ indispensable work solely for ABC’s benefit, but to go even further and suggest that the opposite is true — that the Center is downplaying ABC’s work. A mountain of evidence shows this is not true.

I urge you to go to your reporters and engage in serious self-examination. I think your honest appraisal can reach no conclusion aside from this: At every step of the way, ABC turned to Chris for his longstanding connections to key sources in the coal mining community, his expertise in complex legal and medical issues and his vast trove of evidence, painstakingly gathered over a long period of time.

Now that the series has won high praise, however, ABC seems to have changed its tune. Suddenly, both parties contributed equally, in ABC’s telling.

In other words, I agree with your proposal: Let’s show some integrity.”

ABC News President Ben Sherwood tried to argue that the ABC “reporters” contributed to the story and their names were attached on bylines to stories by the Center for Public Integrity. Here is the Center’s response:

“You again mention that Brian and Matt have bylines on four stories. I will reiterate what I wrote you previously: The second installment in the series — “Johns Hopkins medical unit rarely finds black lung, helping coal industry defeat miners’ claims” — was written entirely by Chris Hamby. He went through editing with Center editors and then shared the story with ABC. Aside from minor wording changes suggested by lawyers for ABC, there were no changes to the story. This is documented in emails and saved drafts of the story. Brian and Matt did significant reporting; however, much of that was to meet the needs of a TV segment and did not end up in the Center’s print story. The amount of reporting from them that made it into the story typically would warrant a credit line at the end. At ABC’s strong request, however, we agreed to place the names of Brian and Matt in the byline field, even though this report was fully reported and written by Chris. To claim for ABC that they wrote this piece now is a pure fabrication.

To put this more simply: The contributions of Brian and Matt do not come close to warranting a byline. We nonetheless inserted their names in the byline fields at ABC’s insistence because we hoped to foster a sense of trust and partnership. It is clear now that ABC’s intent all along was simply to attach their names more prominently to this story for use later in precisely the way you now are: as a weapon to wield in an attempt to claim undue credit.”

“Emails and drafts leading up to the airdate of ABC’s “Nightline” segment show that ABC depended to a remarkable degree on Chris’ access to sources, documents and data and his expertise on complex issues — all of which repeatedly saved ABC from making embarrassing factual errors in broadcast segments and online stories.”

The Center for Public Integrity was not shy about confronting ABC News exactly where they needed to be: “We find it very disturbing that ABC is now trying to grab credit for work it did not do” adding “I will say with near certainty, that ABC would not have received any of the accolades it has shared with us, without the Center’s deep investigative work. In short, without The Center for Public Integrity, this project would not exist. ABC would not have anything to show.

Letter from Center for Public Integrity to Pulitzer Prize Committee explaining ABC TV’s actual role in the story ABC News is now demanding they be retroactively awarded a Pulitzer for.

This project grew out of previous reporting Chris had done on black lung, and he has become a knowledgeable authority on the subject, devoting years of his life to understanding the disease and the benefits system and bringing these powerful stories to light.

I ask you to gather your team; look Matt, Brian and everyone else in the eye and ask them to describe to you exactly what they did that was so crucial beyond producing fine TV segments. Ask them to point you to where in the 25,000 words comprising the original three-part series they made unique contributions.

In the wake of this investigation, Chris has been contacted by at least three government agencies and at least five congressional staffers seeking more information. The reason for this is simple: They all recognize that, although the television segments were well done, the print series is the definitive account that provides the hard and comprehensive evidence, and Chris’ knowledge of these complex but important facts is obvious.

We hope that you will dispassionately examine these facts and, as you have suggested we do, rely on your integrity.

With all good wishes,

Bill

William E. Buzenberg
Executive Director
The Center for Public Integrity

That pretty much is a slam dunk, it seems to me.

ABC News should quit while they are behind.

And journalists Brian Ross and Matt Moskto ought to have the integrity to publicly separate themselves from this sordid PR mudfight and denounce their corporate bosses for using their reputations of integrity to shill for bigger greater corporate profits that have nothing to do with quality journalism.