Posted on 09/19/2004 9:40:13 PM PDT by LibWhacker
After days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.
Those officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins, and that it was mounting an intensive news investigation of where they came from.
But these people cautioned that CBS News could still pull back from an announcement. Officials were meeting last night with Dan Rather, the anchor who presented the report, to go over the information it has collected about the documents one last time before making a final decision.
People at the network said it was now possible that officials would open a formal internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report, which officials now say they are beginning to believe was too flawed to have gone on the air.
The report relied in large part on four memorandums purported to be from the personal file of Mr. Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memos, dated from the early 1970's, said that Colonel Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat'' the record of the young Lieutenant Bush and that the officer had disobeyed a direct order to take a physical.
Mr. Rather and others at the network are said to still believe that the sentiment in the memos accurately reflected Mr. Killian's feelings, but that the documents' authenticity is now in grave doubt.
The developments last night marked a dramatic turn for CBS News, which for a week stood steadfastly by its Sept. 8 report as various document experts asserted that the typeface of the memos could have been produced only by a modern-day word processor, not Vietnam War-era typewriters.
The seemingly unflappable confidence of Mr. Rather and top news division officials in the documents allayed fears within the network and created doubt among some in the news media at large that those specialists were correct. CBS News officials had said they had reason to be certain that the documents indeed came from the personal file of Colonel Killian.
Sandy Genelius, a network spokeswoman, said last week, "We are confident about the chain of custody; we're confident in how we secured the documents.''
But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they were misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.
Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos came from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.
It was unclear last night whether Mr. Burkett told Mr. Rather that he had been misled about the documents' provenance or that he had been the one who did the misleading.
In an e-mail message yesterday, Mr. Burkett declined to answer any questions about the documents.
Yesterday, Emily J. Will, a document specialist who inspected the records for CBS News and said last week that she had raised concerns about their authenticity with CBS News producers, confirmed a report in Newsweek that a producer had told her that the source of the documents had said they were obtained anonymously and through the mail.
During an interview last night she declined to name the producer who told her this but said that the producer had been in a position to know. CBS News officials have disputed her contention that she warned the network the night before the initial "60 Minutes'' report that it would face questions from documents experts.
In the coming days CBS News officials plan to focus on how the network moved ahead with the report when there were warning signs that the memorandums were not genuine.
Ms. Will is one of two documents experts consulted by the network who said they raised doubts about the material before the segment was broadcast. Another expert, Marcel B. Matley, said in interviews that he had only vouched for Colonel Killian's signatures on the records and not the authenticity of the records themselves. Mr. Matley said he could not rule out that the signatures were cut and pasted from official records pertaining to Colonel Killian.
In examining where the network went wrong, officials at CBS News were turning their attention to Ms. Mapes, one of their most respected producers, who was riding particularly high this year after breaking news about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal for the network.
In a telephone interview this weekend, Josh Howard, the executive producer of the "60 Minutes'' Wednesday edition, said he did not initially know who was Ms. Mapes' primary source for the documents but that he did not see any reason to doubt them. He said he believed Ms. Mapes and her team had appropriately answered all questions about the documents' authenticity and, he noted, no one seemed to be casting doubt upon the essential thrust of the report.
"The editorial story line was still intact, and still is, to this day,'' he said, "and the reporting that was done in it was by a person who has turned in decades of flawless reporting with no challenge to her credibility.''
He added, "We in management had no sense that the producing team wasn't completely comfortable with the results of the document analysis.''
Ms. Mapes has not responded to requests for comment.
Mr. Howard also said in the interview that the White House did not dispute the veracity of the documents when it was presented them on the morning of the report. That reaction, he said, was "the icing on the cake'' of the other reporting the network was conducting on the documents. White House officials have said they saw no reason to challenge documents that had been presented by a credible news organization.
Several people familiar with the situation said that they were girding for a particularly tough week for Mr. Rather and the news division should the network announce its new doubts.
One person close to the situation said the critical question would be, "Where was everybody's judgment on that last day?''
Does this reporter have any idea how ridiculous this sounds?
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If the reporter is no older than 5 he probably wouldn't -- unless he was a bright 5 year-old.
Doesn't it involve keeping diaries? I wonder if they could figure out from the records I would submit that 99% of the time I'm watching TV I channel surf during commercials?
The sediment? They believe the sediment? Oh, man, this explains everything! They read the tea leaves wrong! That's gotta be what happened if they read the sediment wrong. Oh, this is tragic.
That is a truly exemplary post you just made. I'm not kidding, bill, it deserves its own thread.
"So it's taken CBS what, almost 2 weeks do 'discover' the memos were bogus when it took others about 2 hours?"
Yes, and they also had lot's of info none of the rest of us had. Like who the dork was that sent them the memos.
Keep an eye on Viacom stock today !!!!!!
I know that. I was (humorously, I thought) pointing to how CBS/Danny Boy could spin their "unimpeachable" claim. If I didn't know that, I couldn't have written what I did.
I thought only Leftists took everything so literally, and (at least look like they do) then wash it down with a swig of Heinz vinegar...October's juices, from September's apple squeezings, that fills JFK's veins.
As if anything truthful will come out of CBS and Dan Rather. They ALWAYS "sugar coat" democrat dirty tricks and have an elasticity when it comes to truthful reporting about the GOP.
They spent FIVE YEARS investigating this. As Brit Hume asked this Sunday, "WHY?"
It can't be true! They've already lied once before!
So, the "unimpeachable source" turns out to be an anonymous one, conveniently untraceable to the DNC? Gimme a break.
"I think I'm gonna go spy out what the DUmmies are saying about this for a few laughs. I might even bring back a quote or two."
Right up until a couple of hours ago they were doggedly defending those memos as real. Even to the point of making fun of Freepers thinking they might be fake.
Well DUers...... who was right and who was wrong?!?!?!
Since this 60 Minutes fiasco started, it's the first time I've watched SeeBS in many, many years. I liken it to hearing about a train wreck on the radio, and then hopping in the car to drive across town to get a first hand eyewitness account of the flaming carnage. Other than that, I have no use for SeeBS.
I believe there can only be one answer: They knew they eventually would come up with "proof," even if it had to be fabricated.
It's about time those clowns came out and confessed, although after reading the article I still have no confidence that CBS is interested in any form of full disclosure.
And that "proof" had to come out sooner than an "October surprise" air time because Kerry was getting hammered about his Vietnam service.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2004-09-19-media-mix_x.htm
"CBS in third week on the defensive"
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