ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, November 20, 1995                   TAG: 9511210047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

CBS DEFENDS ITS DECISION TO SNUFF TOBACCO INTERVIEW ON `60 MINUTES'

CBS News on Sunday defended its decision to spike a ``60 Minutes'' interview about the tobacco industry, saying the piece posed enough legal risk to justify blocking its broadcast.

In a memo to company employees, CBS News President Eric Ober said some of the reaction to management's decision was ``highly inappropriate,'' and he urged staffers to put the controversy behind them.

``The decision not to air the interview with a former tobacco industry executive, albeit controversial, was correct,'' Ober wrote in CBS's first extensive statement on its decision to withhold the story.

``We believe that the news-gathering process on the story was in every respect sound and appropriate. However, we also believe that the story raised some journalistic questions and posed significant legal risk to warrant making the decision not to air the interview,'' Ober said.

The New York Times reported Nov. 9 that CBS News managers killed the ``60 Minutes'' interview with a former tobacco company executive because they feared, in part, that they would be held legally responsible for violating the man's confidentiality agreement with his former employer, Brown & Williamson.

The news magazine ultimately ran a story on how tobacco companies control information about the industry. Media critics accused CBS News of buckling under the mere threat of costly litigation.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that the attorney for the former tobacco company executive said he expects the source to repeat in a court deposition charges he reportedly made in the CBS report that never aired.

Sources confirm that the former executive is Jeffrey Wigand, now a high school teacher in Louisville, Ky. Wigand will offer testimony highly critical of the tobacco company when he gives a deposition Wednesday in a lawsuit brought by the state attorney general of Mississippi, said his attorney, Richard Scruggs.

Wigand was vice president of research and development when Brown & Williamson fired him in 1993, according to Scruggs. 


 by CNB