From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Brooke Ladstone is away. I'm Bob Garfield.

After more than a year of war and occupation, Iraq on Wednesday was to regain its sovereignty,

a ceremony whose historical and political significance is debatable, but whose headline value is unquestioned.

Thus did the 24-hour news channels and major broadcast networks start airlifting anchors, designing logos, and generally

preparing for a major, major photo-up. But then the unthinkable happened. Security concerns prompted

the powers that be to make the switch

two days early before the networks could even cue the theme music. CBS was the first of the

broadcast Big Three to get the story on the air, but not before a mad scramble.

CBS is getting details in Baghdad from our correspondent, Dan, rather.

One of the questions is going to be, well, why didn't they broadcast this live and radio and

television? Why wasn't the public allowed to see it? And the answer, which has not been given

officially, but is obvious that for security reasons, they did it in this manner,

including moving up the schedule.

Joining me now is CBS's Senior Vice President for News coverage, Marcy McGuinness.

Marcy, welcome back to On the Media.

Thank you, Bob.

Great to be here.

So, Monday, kind of like spending six months planning an expensive wedding only to have the couple of lope?

A little bit.

More like the wedding that you had to plan really quickly because they decided to do it two days early.

Well, tell me what CBS and you had done in preparation for what was going to be the handover on Wednesday.

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