Sure.. no bad faith here. Book deal in return for dirt? Sure! No problem. We will send over a book guarantee ASAP!! While we get this going let me share with the campaign that is going to benefit so they can get ready to maximize!!!
Freelance journalist Michael Smith had emailed Mapes, asking, "What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we needed to get an ASAP book deal to help get us the information?" Mapes replied, "that looks good, hypothetically speaking of course."[130] The Thornburgh–Boccardi report found that Mapes' contact with Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart was "highly inappropriate", and that it "crossed the line as, at a minimum, it gave the appearance of a political bias and could have been perceived as a news organizations' assisting a campaign as opposed to reporting on a story";[114] however, the Panel did not "find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired the Segment of having a political bias".[131] In a later interview with The Washington Post, when asked about the issue of political bias, review panel member Louis Boccardi said "bias is a hard thing to prove".[132] The panel concluded that the problems occurred "primarily because of a rush to air that overwhelmed the proper application of the CBS News Standards"