CBS NEWS HITS ALLEGATIONS THAT IT’S COLLAPSING

Allegations appearing Thursday in Tina Brown’s TheDailyBeast.com that CBS News was in a virtual state of collapse as a result of massive cutbacks were later branded as “outright fabrications and distortions” by a CBS News spokesperson. Speaking to the Mediaite.com website, the spokesperson took aim at two assertions in the article that CBS News staffers were unable to get business cards because the person assigned to ordering them had “vanished” and that cell phone services had been blocked on BlackBerry devices issued to producers. The spokesperson called the allegations “nonsense,” adding, “I have no idea who [the writer] thinks vanished, but I can tell you there’s been no interruption in ordering business cards.” The spokesperson added that CBS News provides both cell phones and BlackBerrys to producers. “It costs more, but there has never even been consideration of cutting back on any of that.”