New CBSNews blog features Vaughn Ververs as 'nonbudsman'

Online now is Public Eye, CBSNews.com's blog which provides a behind-the-scenes look at the CBS newsroom and an opportunity for Web users to communicate with CBS news.

Vaughn Ververs, Public Eye editor, said the Internet was the chosen medium for Public Eye because the now-common blog format allows users to communicate in a conversational manner.

"The Internet is where people are having conversations today and have been for a long time," Ververs said. "We allow people to post comments to everything we put up there -- whether it's a story we've done, or just an observation that we've made -- so we can have a dialogue there. We can answer people directly on the blog: When they e-mail in with a good question, we'll try to find the answer and we'll put it up."

Ververs said the tone and appearance aimed for with Public Eye is "conversational, but not snarky all the time."

Comments of any nature are welcome, as it allows the organizers of Public Eye to provide users with insight as to why certain decisions were made and why certain pieces went on air; however, Public Eye is an edited blog and adheres to high standards.

"[The blog] has a seriousness, a purpose," Ververs said. "The only thing we would edit out is language. We don't want this to turn into a place where you're going to read bad language, where there are personal attacks on people."

Ververs' role with Public Eye is what CBS News President Andrew Heyward has called a "nonbudsman." This is different than a traditional newspaper ombudsman, Ververs explained.

"A traditional newspaper ombudsman will take up issues, some from the public, some that he may raise himself, some that may be raised within the newsroom, and he will look at that with his own judgment on it," Ververs said.

"He's sort of acting as a prosecutor, a jury and a judge all at the same time when rendering a verdict on what he thinks the newspaper should have done in a given situation," Ververs said. "We are not going to do that probably hardly ever.

We'll leave it up to people to make their own determinations, but we're going to try to give them the tools to make a good determination, an informed decision," Ververs said.