local CBS affiliate response (put your waders on)

Pretty much a cut & paste response, but figured I'd throw it out there anyway. My email:

I have removed WCCO from my TV channel listing until your support of CBS & CBS News programming is pulled. CBS has proven time and again they have no journalistic integrity, and further now have perpetrated criminal deception on its viewers by trying to influence a presidential election with forged documents IN COLLUSION with the Democratic Party. They have stonewalled repeatedly in the face of clear fact with the hope that this issue will be forgotten; I assure you it will not. CBS will never be trusted again without cleaning house and coming clean to the American public. Their long-suspected, now documented ties to the Democratic party is in gross violation of every journalistic standard a public news organization is charged with upholding. Your support of CBS and providing their biased news in our market also violates the public trust.

Thank you for taking the time to write us your comments. All of us at WCCO-TV appreciate your feedback regarding CBS News. CBS issued the following statements as of 11:30 a.m., Monday, Sept. 20th. We invite you to read both the statement from CBS News and CBS Management as well as the statement from Dan Rather.

MAN WHO GAVE CBS NEWS DISPUTED DOCUMENTS DESCRIBES HOW HE OBTAINED THEM; IN TELEVISION INTERVIEW, HE ADMITS HE DELIBERATELY MISLED CBS NEWS PRODUCER

CBS NEWS ACKNOWLEDGES THAT, BASED ON SUBSEQUENT REPORTING ON QUESTIONS ABOUT DOCUMENTS, IT CANNOT PROVE THEY ARE AUTHENTIC AND, THEREFORE, THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN USED IN THE "60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY" REPORT

Bill Burkett, in a weekend interview with CBS News Anchor and Correspondent Dan Rather, has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents used in the Sept. 8 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY report on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source. Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point. Burkett's interview will be featured in a full report on tonight's CBS EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER (6:30-7:00 PM, ET/PT).

In light of this and other developments reported by CBS News and other news organizations, CBS News President Andrew Heyward issued the following statement: "60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY had full confidence in the original report or it would not have aired. However, in the wake of serious and disturbing questions that came up after the broadcast, CBS News has done extensive additional reporting in an effort to confirm the documents' authenticity. That included an interview featured on last week's edition of 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY (15) with Marian Carr Knox, secretary to the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the officer named as the author of the documents; the interview with Bill Burkett to be seen tonight (20); and a further review of the forensic evidence on both sides of the debate. Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret. Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust."

CBS News and CBS management are commissioning an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken. The names of the people conducting the review will be announced shortly, and their findings will be made public.

Press Contacts: Sandy Genelius 212.975.7525 or smg@cbsnews.com Kelli Edwards 212.975.6795 or kee@cbsnews.com

Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question-and their source-vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where-if I knew then what I know now-I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

I think we should compile a list of advertisers for cBS News and 60 minutes and write them. That is how we will truly apply pressure to VIA.

That is a week response though. They would probably be better off not even responding then sending that cheap form letter.

I believe this link will contact all seeBS affiliate with one letter. http://www.rathergate.com/emailaffiliates.php I know a search will provide a list of advertisers, It's been posted many times. Funny...the only time I've watched CBS in years was after this all broke.

Check out the "statement" from the General Manager of the Nashville affiliate, WTVF. She would have done well to remain silent as to issue something so weak.

http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/6969.asp

NewsChannel 5 GM Responds To CBS Story On President's Guard Duty
Posted: 9/21/2004 3:38:00 PM
Updated: 9/21/2004 5:06:23 PM

NewsChannel 5 General Manager Debbie Turner issued the following statement Tuesday in response to the admission by CBS News that the national network had made mistakes in its recent coverage of President Bush's National Guard service.

Dear NewsChannel 5 Viewers,

I have expressed my disappointment to CBS regarding Dan Rather’s 60 Minutes report on President Bush and his service in the Texas Air National Guard.

When CBS completes its investigation of how this mistake was made, I am confident that the higher ups at CBS will take steps to make sure this never happens again.

I regret that the sloppiness of the CBS report may reflect badly on the 170 men and women who work here at NewsChannel 5. I am proud of our local news and the ethical standards by which our news department operates.

Deborah F. Turner
President & General Manager
NewsChannel 5 Network

Is a station in Virginia leading the way - saw something where CBS was being dropped - don't know for sure as it was on a news snip on CNN - but if true - perhaps more stations will follow -

just a thought and wonder -

Good email, but by its generic-ness I feel they realised and apparently rightfully so it was a cut and paste. I'm not saying that they weren't wrong in their response, I'm just saying if you wanted an actually personal response, maybe you could have included a tidbit about how you love watching Amelia Santanello, or one of their other anchors stating by name.

I'm surprised they are simply footing the company line, as WCCO always seems the best at individually covering events for Republicans. Maybe they've changed, I haven't watched WCCO in a long time.

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