Posted on 09/18/2004 9:39:29 AM PDT by Truth Wins in the End
That 60 Minutes II story last week on President Bush's Air National Guard service has been credibly disputed, and, along with it, the credibility of CBS News.
Anchorman Dan Rather initially mounted a spirited defense, but his news organization would have been better served had it put as much energy in authenticating the documents that prompted the report.
The story, now held in the disrepute that it is, has done nothing to educate voters on Bush's Guard service. The overarching moral here is really about the necessary steps news organizations must take before such stories are aired or printed.
Anticipating the questions disputing a story's "facts" are a vital part of that exercise. It shouldn't have been left to bloggers and other news organizations to point out the inconsistencies - key among them whether a superscripted "th" was possible on the Guard's typewriters in the '70s. These were items that should have been explained in the story itself if, after discovering them, CBS elected to air the story at all.
Strenuous care should be taken with every story, but particularly when it comes from a news organization with such national reach and particularly when the story comes in a campaign already replete with subjective perception masquerading as objective fact.
That the story was so easily rendered into just another election-year, he-said, they-said irrelevancy points to the strong likelihood that it was simply not ready for prime time. It points to the unsavory possibility that CBS News was used. Worse, it points to recklessness.
The signs aren't encouraging that CBS will ultimately prevail on the facts. The secretary who would have typed the memos says they are fake though she also says that the contents accurately reflect what the alleged author, Bush squadron commander Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, had voiced about Bush. CBS' authenticating experts are now stepping forward to say that they couldn't really conclusively authenticate the documents.
As played out so far, this story will be just one more reason for the public to distrust news organizations, though it should be noted that other news outlets exhaustively reported on the reporting. More unfortunate yet is that the story distracts voters from exploring further what is legitimately an important question in this campaign: Bush's resume and his unwillingness to be open about it.
It really isn't in much dispute that key portions of that Air National Guard resume are missing. And the president - who now sends Guard and Reserve members to war in Iraq - has never really adequately addressed these charges of favorable treatment, starting with his ability to jump ahead of others to get into a so-called "champagne" Guard unit while others were being drafted and sent to Vietnam.
The standard White House response has been that his honorable discharge from the Guard proves that the president fulfilled his obligation. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "We don't know if the documents are fabricated or authentic."
This line of defense isn't what anyone should consider a ringing endorsement of duties and obligations honorably fulfilled. Still, if CBS was purporting to cast more light on this issue, it failed miserably.
They lie even when they don't have to.
Where's Kerry's 180, btw?
Expect much more Ratheresque reporting, but less.
Journalism colleges now grade on political correctness, not quality of writing or research. I discovered this when trying to hire an editor for a publishing house. Hardly any candidates for the job who were under 50 could pass our qualification tests. When I asked a promising young man with a masters in journalism from a "good" university why he only made a score of 55% on our spelling/grammar/editing test, he told me of the sorry state of affairs at his college.
He should sue them for taking his money and time and failing to educate him. They all should, but most are so accustomed to "thinking" only in terms of political correctness, they can't tell a fact from a hole in their ****s.
Now it's up to the blogosphere to create and hold to good reporting standards and writing. How about that?
Rather and CBSNews broke a cardinal rule of journalism:
Instead of reporting the story, they allowed themselves (Rather and CBSNews) to become the story.
Once again, the smell of Schadenfreude wafts through the morning air....
Translation: Rather did the right thing when he tried to slime Bush, but he all right-thinking liberals must condemn him for getting caught and spoiling their game.
Or in other words.... If you're going to lie, don't get caught.
As a daily reader of this paper, I can tell you this editorial is more than a moral victory. Of course, it did take them a full week to acknowledge what should have been painfully obvious from the beginning . . .
More from the "the memos are fake but what they say are true" crowd. Is it any wonder that the MSM are in decline. Such crap, all the time.
This whole scandal must make Dan sad or even insane. Saddan Insane.
For many News organizations, the reporters ARE the story, putting themselves in the forefront of most reports.
It's called "face-time". It seems many reporters will report (or READ) anything as long as they get 'face-time'.
Maybe that no longer makes them 'reporters'. It makes them egotists using news as a 'prop' to promote their own self.
(steely)
AKA, FREEPERLAND! I do wish that people would start giving more credit to FORUMS such as Free Republic and stop using blog-speak. Yea the blogs are there but where else can you find such a diverse COLLECTION of "bloggers" as you can at FR. The collective intelligence of this forum is unbelieveable. In fact, if I am not mistaken one of our members "broke" the "memos look like Word" story.
Add to that, their criticism is printed on Saturday.
No, it was in yesterday's paper.
Perhaps several Freepers residing in the Milwaukee area could write to the Journal Sentinal, throw their own line back at them, point out that Bush signed a form 180 and Kerry did not and ask your question.
Then let's see if the paper will print even one of the letters.
FR is the gold standard of forums and the blogosphere.
Is it a liberal paper? I mean more or less liberal.
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