WP profile of CBS/Rather producer: "Mary Mapes's Darkest Hour"

[DeepModem Mom]

Mary Mapes's Darkest Hour
The '60 Minutes' Producer Finds Herself Quite a Story

By Jennifer Frey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 4, 2004; Page C01

...."Mary has not been portrayed as a human being," says Jim Murphy, executive producer of "CBS Evening News With Dan Rather." "Everything from the deer-caught-in-the-headlights photo to the political operative stuff -- that's not the Mary we know."

Just months ago, Mapes was the first to obtain photographs depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, a major coup for the network. Murphy, though he has never been her direct supervisor, knows Mapes best from the "harrowing" eight-day trip they took with Rather into Afghanistan in the days after U.S. forces entered Kabul in 2001. Murphy says she was the best kind of companion on such an assignment: capable, unruffled and able to keep the mood light, no matter the circumstance....

***

Rather, who long has relied on her judgment, says Mapes has his "respect" and his "friendship."...

***

But that woman -- described by those who have worked with her as "funny," "smart" and "very talented" -- has been silent through all of this. Far from CBS News headquarters on West 57th Street in Manhattan, Mapes has remained at her Dallas home -- her base while working on "60 Minutes" -- with her husband and 7-year-old son. She declined to be interviewed for this article through her husband, Mark Wrolstad, a staff writer for the Dallas Morning News. Wrolstad describes much of what has been said and written about his wife and her actions as "inaccuracies and mischaracterizations," but declines to go into details....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4847-2004Oct3.html

[hlthe2b]

1. I feel sorry for this woman....

Even if it ends up being "her" fault, her long distinguished career should count for as much as Rather's. Frankly, I hope neither ends up a sacrificial lamb on the alter of Karl Rove, or whoever may have set them up...


Time for karma to go to the deserving recipient!

[papau]

2. being "her" fault -But there is no fault - real docs are real docs -how is

there fault after the Docs typeface is the same as the promotion Doc typed a year earlier

and the Signature was verified.

Does one really need a history of who had the docs - like a paintings provenance - before you can go to air?