Yes, Bode erred, but CBS was even more irresponsible

	60 Minutes quoted World Cup champion Bode Miller as saying he has skied 'wasted.' AP
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Last Thursday afternoon, CBS News issued a press release promoting its interview with U.S. skier Bode Miller on the venerable newsmagazine 60 Minutes. In writing the headline on the release, CBS didn't cheat its readers out of any breathless hype:

"World Cup ski champ admits to being drunk on the slopes -- 60 Minutes Sunday."

The purpose of a snappy headline -- whether on a press release or a newspaper or magazine story -- is to entice the reader to read the story that follows. CBS' headline worked for me. I read the entire release. That said, I would have watched the show, anyway. I've been covering Miller for the last four years, and I'm always interested to see how other members of the media -- especially those getting their first dose of Bode -- handle this most unusual athlete.

Here is how the producers of 60 Minutes handled Bode: They started digging on the story last summer. I know this because one of their researchers called me several times to talk about Miller and we had two long phone conversations, during which I tried my best to paint a fair picture of Miller without compromising any material that I had been given exclusively.

From there the program did its interviews with Miller, Miller's mother, Jo; and U.S. ski team coaches Phil McNichol, John McBride and Mike Morin; gathered the usual volumes of archived videotape of Miller's sensational runs (and his equally sensational crashes) and sent correspondent Bob Simon to interview Miller in the New Hampshire woods where Bode was raised.

The piece aired Sunday night. It was roughly 15 minutes long. I watched it with my wife and two teenaged children, and at the end I said, "Bode 101.'' That's what it was. It covered all the basic ground that many writers -- including me -- covered in detail at least four years ago, when Bode first started winning World Cup races: his hippie upbringing, his propensity for contrarian views, his marketing and monetary successes. That's not a criticism. 60 Minutes reaches a wide audience and many in that audience might have been unfamiliar with Miller.

I would quibble with a few things. I took a look at Simon's bio. He is an accomplished international journalist. He has done distinguished work in dangerous places. I don't believe he will cite the day he included footage of himself skiing in the Miller piece as one of his career highlights. Using his own ski lessons as background for critiquing Miller's form was embarrassing. It would be like Sports Illustrated NFL guru Peter King assessing Tom Brady's throwing motion by referencing King's Pop Warner career.

I ski, too. From the looks of the tape, I ski better -- well, faster, anyway -- than Simon. But I would never use my own skiing experience as grounds for evaluating someone like Miller. The gulf between our abilities is much too large.

But in general, the CBS piece was just fine. The press release was not. It was a superficial cheap shot.