Corporate Influence Over News Gathering?

Liberal media? What liberal media?

Rather than being partisan or ideological, as so many critics allege, TV network news has a bigger problem: spinelessness.

That, at least, is one conclusion to draw from CNN congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin's disclosure on her network last night.

Yellin, who worked at ABC News and MSNBC before moving to CNN, recalled being steered away -- not forbidden as much as discouraged, she stressed -- from doing critical or negative stories about preparations for the Iraq War.

"The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings," she said during a discussion on Anderson Cooper 360^o of former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's new book.

"And my own experience at the White House," she continued, "was that the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives."

Yellin emphasized that she was not working for CNN at the time -- she later wrote on the Anderson Cooper 360^o blog that she was referring to her time at MSNBC. She added:

"I did not mean to leave the impression that corporate executives were interfering in my daily work; my interaction was with senior producers. What was clear to me is that many people running the broadcasts wanted coverage that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the country at the time. It was clear to me they wanted their coverage to reflect the mood of the country."

by Mark Stein

(Jeff Bercovici is on vacation.)

Thanks to Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News, via the indispensable Jim Romenesko.