Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney Michael B. Nifong is a big fish in a small pond, and not very bright. He doesn't necessarily do what's right. And he just did not realize the trouble he was getting into when he seized the opportunity to win the Democrat District Attorney primary on May 2, 2006 by giving credence to that inherently suspect gang rape claim, bringing kidnapping, rape and sexual assault charges against the Duke Three (Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans) and reviling their lacrosse teammates for covering up such non-existent crimes instead of coming forward to do whatever he wanted them to do.
Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney Michael B. Nifong is a big fish in a small pond, and not very bright. He doesn't necessarily do what's right. And he just did not realize the trouble he was getting into when he seized the opportunity to win the Democrat District Attorney primary on May 2, 2006 by giving credence to that inherently suspect gang rape claim, bringing kidnapping, rape and sexual assault charges against the Duke Three (Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans) and reviling their lacrosse teammates for covering up such non-existent crimes instead of coming forward to do whatever he wanted them to do.
Sean McManus was named President, CBS Sports, in November 1996 and President, CBS News, in October 2005. Mr. McManus led CBS Corporation’s efforts in acquiring broadcast rights to the National Football League in January 1998 and, in November 2004 with CBS head Leslie Moonves, re-negotiated the contract to retain the rights for CBS until 2011. Mr. Moonves chose him to replace Andrew Heyward as President of CBS News.
Make no mistake: Mr. McManus is not a conservative, and not as perception
as Bernard Goldberg. Last November, when asked if he perceived a need to address perceptions that CBS has a left-wing bias, Mr. McManus said no and added: "It’s very difficult for any reporter or producer to completely and totally shut out his political opinions, but what I’ve seen at CBS News, people do a darned good job at doing that. I guess if I saw that creeping into our coverage I would have to address it, but I don’t see that in our coverage, I think we have been falsely accused of that at times."
Still, Mr. McManus is a Dukie, He is not brain-dead. He does not have an interest in believing in the Duke rape hoax. He recognizes the Duke rape hoax as the Duke rape hoax and the opportunity it is for CBS News, which needs to seize opportunities to restore its tarnished reputation.
For a multitude of good reasons, Mr. McManus is making sure CBS takes advantage of the opportunity. (How fully CBS takes advantage of it is still to be determined.)
The CBS website celebrates Mr. McManus' successes at CBS Sports:
"During McManus' more than nine years as President of the Division, CBS Sports has become the year-round leader in network sports television. In November 1999, he led CBS to an unprecedented landmark agreement with the NCAA which extended the exclusive over-the-air broadcast rights, as well as rights to the Internet, marketing and corporate sponsorship, merchandising, licensing, cable television, radio, satellite, digital and home video to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship until 2014. The 11-year pact is the most comprehensive sports agreement in history.
"McManus recently reached a new multiyear agreement with the PGA TOUR to extend its broadcast rights through 2012 and to remain the TOUR's dominant broadcast partner. He also recently extended broadcast rights to the PGA Championship through 2011. In addition, McManus extended CBS's agreement with the United States Tennis Association to broadcast the U.S. Open through 2008, extended the agreement with the Big Ten to broadcast the conference's basketball games through 2010 and extended the Southeastern Conference (SEC) football and basketball agreements through 2008.
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"In addition, McManus led CBS's efforts in securing a partnership with SportsLine USA that created CBS SportsLine, one of the most successful sports Internet sites, and then, with CBS SportsLine and America Online, obtained the exclusive Internet rights to NFL.com and Super Bowl.com."
Mr. McManus' sports background prepared him well:
"Prior to his CBS Sports tenure, he was Senior Vice President of U.S. Television Sales and Programming for Trans World International, the television division of International Management Group, the world’s largest sports marketing firm (1987-96).
"Before that, McManus was Vice President, Program Planning and Development at NBC Sports (1982-87), becoming the youngest vice president in the history of the network. He was responsible for all programming and was instrumental in the rights negotiations for the Olympics, the NFL, Wimbledon, the Breeders' Cup, the Orange Bowl, auto racing and NCAA college basketball. McManus joined NBC Sports in 1979 as an associate producer assigned to the NFL, Wimbledon, the PGA TOUR, 'Sportsworld,' auto racing and the Tour de France.
"He began his career in 1977 at ABC Sports as a production assistant and associate producer."
1977 also was the year that Mr. McManus graduated cum laude with a degree in English and history.
What institution of higher learning awarded Mr. McManus his degree?
Duke University!
Michael Goldstein's profile of Mr. McManus in Duke University Alumni Magazine noted how Mr. McManus combined journalism and sports:
"At Duke, he wrote for The Chronicle and avidly followed Duke basketball. 'This was the Gene Banks era,' he points out. He was an English and history double major, but he knew all along he wanted to become a producer of TV sports."
The Duke Administration did not treat the Duke Three as the victims, but The Chronicle quickly figured out the truth.
It falls to Mr. McManus to set matters right, and as the head of CBS News, with "60 Minutes" to send into the fray, plan on the ultimate victory of truth, justice and the American way, at least in the pending criminal proceedings against the Duke Three.
Mr. Nifong's declaration of war on the 2006 Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team and persecution (let's not call it prosecution) of the Duke Three presented Mr. McManus with a golden opportunity to begin the restoration of the reputation of CBS so badly tarnished under Mr. Heyward when Dan Rather and Mary Mapes (fortunately, now history at CBS) peddled a phony story based on forged documents in an effort to elect liberal Democrat Senator John Kerry President in 2004, by exposing Mr. Nifong, a white liberal Democrat who persecuted the Duke Three in order to win a Democrat primary by winning the decisive black votes.
One should hope that Mr. McManus will show how the Durham establishment (Democrat) has protected Mr. Nifong and North Carolina's top Democrats (Governor Michael Easley, who appointed Mr. Nifong, and Attorney General Roy Cooper) have looked away from instead of into flagrant prosecutorial misconduct by a fellow Democrat.
THAT would make the upcoming "60 Minutes" season opener (September 24, 2006) a much greater public service than a story just exonerating the Duke Three and excoriating Mr. Nifong (as though he was Durham's only big problem).
Fortunately, Mr. McManus can identify with the Duke Three as the son of a wealthy father instead of envy them. His Dad is the legendary Jim McKay. His CBS biography so identified him and his Duke Magazine profile emphasizes that his being Mr. McKay's son was not something for which he felt a need to apologize: "In 1987.... he was still known in the business as McKay's son, but he says he didn't mind; their relationship remained close. In fact, in 1988 his father, who had started buying thoroughbred horses, won the Maryland Million with a steed named 'Sean's Ferrari.' As a child, Sean had lobbied for his folks to buy one, without success."
It falls to Mr. McManus to make Durham, North Carolina safe for Duke University's male lacrosse players, he's in a position to do it and it will be good for CBS News and him (as well as America) to do it. Ergo, he'll do it.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.