CBS president and CEO Les Moonves said that it is “inaccurate” to claim that his network has a conflict of interest arising from the sibling relationship between CBS News president David Rhodes and Obama national security adviser Ben Rhodes, who edited the administration’s Benghazi talking points to focus on a YouTube video.
The Daily Caller reported last May on the relationship between the Rhodes brothers and potential conflict of interest at CBS. Earlier this month, the CBS Evening News ignored a newly released Ben Rhodes email outlining the administration’s changed talking points while ABC World News and NBC Nightly News reported on the email.
Moonves denied conflict of interest in response to a question at CBS’s annual shareholder meeting on May 22.
Moonves called the question “ironic,” considering that liberal outlets this year criticized the CBS program “60 Minutes” for an inaccurate report on the Benghazi scandal.
Other networks figuring out how to cover the Benghazi scandal also have close ties to the Obama administration. ABC senior correspondent Claire Shipman is married to White House press secretary Jay Carney and ABC president Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama special adviser Elizabeth Sherwood. CNN president Virginia Mosely is married to Tom Nides, who served as a deputy secretary of state under Hillary Clinton at the State Department during the Benghazi terrorist attack. Nides resigned from the Obama administration in 2013.