I have to wonder, especially after getting this e-mail from a former CBS News colleague who can’t quite believe his eyes, or ears.

He caught the CBS Evening News last night, to see what they had to say about the death of the legendary Don Hewitt.

As he tells it:

The CBS Evening News leads tonight with Don Hewitt, and, after the opening teases, the first words out of the anchor’s mouth had something to do with Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone. It was stupid. Is there no one on the staff of the Evening News who can write? The piece, narrated by Katie Couric, makes no mention of “60 Minutes” and the tobacco piece that was squelched. If you aren’t straight forward about your own shortcomings as an organization should viewers trust you when you are reporting problems other companies have encountered? I don’t think so.

The Hewitt piece called for a correspondent who can write, a Bruce Morton, a David Browning.

Then there was a piece about women drinking and driving with the opening shots of people on Long Island who were legally drunk. Had they been picked up in that condition or were they part of an experiment that required them to over indulge? Who knows? CBS News didn’t tell us.

The Hewitt obit on the CBS News Web site was, at least the version I saw right after the death was reported, embarrassing. Words left out, words misspelled, people identified only by their last names as though the piece were written for an Indonesian audience.

Perhaps [CBS News President Sean] McManus should farm the news product out to an outside contractor. It’s hard to imagine how it could be worse, but it will be in time.

It’s painful to read stuff like that.

Painful, and sobering.