In any event, USA Today did one of the fastest 180s in the history of journalism. Apparently, the editorial checks and balances work better at USA Today than at CBS News, although I should point out that the paper has never apologized (nor explained) its original hit piece. It is also debatable how quickly USA Today would have changed its tune had the Jack Kelly scandal never occurred.
But here's the real bottom line for American journalism. Why did no one in the media challenge the memos until the bloggers and the FReepers pointed out the obvious deficiencies in the CBS documents? The MSM was quite willing to let CBS News air a fraudulent story, and would have dismissed Republican questions about the stories as partisian rhetoric. As Sean Hannity (and others) have pointed out, the carefully contrived ANG story was designed to turn the election--and it might have, without the new media, including FR.
You could fire half the liberals at the NYT, Washington Post, Newsweek, et al., and they'd still be hopeless causes. They're dinosaurs, and the ice age has already begun. Americans are voting with their feet, their pocket books and their remote controls and the MSM is (thankfully) in its death throes...
"But here's the real bottom line for American journalism. Why did no one in the media challenge the memos until the bloggers and the FReepers pointed out the obvious deficiencies in the CBS documents? "
Geeeeeee - I wonder how many other times the Liberal MSM has misled the American Public ...?
Regardless of the MSM's intent, they didn't have time. We beat them to this story (and continue to).
Back in the Abu Ghraib feeding frenzy there were quite a few MSM clods who were reporting on the far worse pictures to come, including rapes etc.
Turns out those pictures were lifted from porn sites and were totally staged. For a while they were all yelling about it until someone found the porn site. I remember that the Boston Globe actually printed a retraction and apology, though not too prominently placed in the paper.
I wonder who circulated those porn pics. Could it have been a producer who was delighted with her success in damaging the US military so far and just wanted more, more, more? There is no proof it was Mapes, of course, but SOMEBODY circulated those "rape" pictures and the MSM swallowed them whole until they blew up.
All we can be sure of is that the SOMEONE wanted to damage our troops, our morale, and our resolve. Basically they wanted to damage our country and most of the media were enthusiastic in joining them.