Heads Should Roll at USA Today

AIM.org ^ | 9-24-04 | Cliff Kincaid

[xzins]

This is true, and it has flown under the radar screen.

They also accepted forgeries without proper vetting while ignoring exculpatory evidence.

Their error was no less egregious.

[Hank Rearden]

What do you expect from McPaper?

[Chummy]

"What do you expect from McPaper?"

Price hikes, no comics and poorly written snippets of "news"?

[Always Right]

They will skate just because they did not break the story. No one really expects investigative journalism from USA Today, and since 60 Minutes already aired the story, they figured they were covered. They deserve to be hit with this, but Rather is a mega-lightning rod.

[dc-zoo]

Plus USA Today had six documents. How did they end up with six documents and where did they get them?

[Always Right]

Price hikes, no comics and poorly written snippets of "news"?

Well before the internet, they did have the best national sports page. The best place to get timely stats and info on all the major sports teams. Now, I don't see the point.

[austinaero]

USA Today has been a sham for a very long time. It makes great liner for the bird cage.

[Don Simmons]

No surprise in hearing this about that pinko rag!

[deport]

Plus USA Today had six documents. How did they end up with six documents and where did they get them?

---

Didn't they post the documents that the White House gave to the media?..... Didn't CBS give the WH the documents prior to the airing of Sixty Minutes II and the WH then released them on to other media outlets? If so that's a little different than getting them on their own and then posting them without vetting, imo.

[PA Engineer]

It gets worse.

From rightmarch.com today.

USA Today PULLS Our Dan Rather Ad!

ALERT: Our ad demanding accountability from Dan Rather and CBS News was scheduled to be published today (9/22/04), NATIONWIDE, in USA Today...

But you won't see it there.

We just received word that they PULLED our ad.

You read that right. At the last minute, we got a call that USA Today would NOT run our ad. We've run THREE hard-hitting full-page nationwide ads with them before, so we were caught off-guard by their rejection.

Everything we've heard so far is "hearsay" -- they haven't put anything in writing. At first, we were told that their legal department had nixed it. Maybe that's not surprising, since USA Today had been given the same forged documents that CBS News had gotten, and had run the same story to begin with.

But then, the "official" story came down that they would only run "political" ads if the advertising group paid FULL RATE CARD prices on the ad. That means paying MUCH higher rates than anything we've paid in the past (most advertisers get discounts off of the "rate card").

We think that's just a smokescreen for the truth -- that their legal eagles are SCARED of the ad we want to run, so they pulled it.

But they're not going to be able to stop us.

[Grampa Dave]

Another prime example of USALIESTODAY:

On September 9, one day after the 60 Minutes story aired, USA Today was out with its own story under the headline, "Guard commander's memos criticize Bush," by Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard.

The story was based on "newly disclosed documents," the paper claimed. It said "the memos" were "obtained by USA Today and also reported Wednesday on the CBS program 60 Minutes…" The paper went on to say that White House communications director Dan Bartlett "did not dispute the documents' authenticity."

Whenever a conservative checks in at a hotel/motel tell them that you don't want the so called free copy of USALIESTODAY. Then demand that they take off the built in $ charge for the so called free copy. Most clerks will just smile and deduct a $ from your room charge. Those newspapers are not free.

[Sooth2222]

...it's also "free" at most hotels, and if you're in a place that you can't get any real news (like France) and the cable TV translator walks all over CNN sound (in French) and TWA Flight 800 happens to explode over Long Island and you're in France trying to figure out what actually happened, it might be useful. (As it was for us in France in July, 1996.)

..otherwise, it's just a large-sized comic-book printed on cheap paper. I don't usually bother to pick it up from in front of the hotel room door.

[OldFriend]

No one expects real news in USA Today!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

USA Today is not a newspaper. When ever I travel, I always instruct the hotel clerk to not deliver a USA Today to my room and to deduct the cost of the paper from my bill.

[austinaero]

Great idea in theory,,but I've always seen it as complimentary (another poster actually mentioned this first). Have you actually gotten a deduction from your bill? If that works, it's a great concept.

[CDB]

We all know what you mean, but avoid the "heads should roll" metaphor.

[MeekOneGOP]

[cyncooper]

Not under my radar. Glad this was written up. Obviously you mean the MSM at this point ignores USA Today and their role in this scandal.

We can hope as Thornburgh and his partner do their investigaion, which should include a talk with Burkett, they can find out everybody he spoke to and how antsy they were to dash to the front of the line with what they thought would be detrimental to GWB.

[xzins]

Yes, I mean the MSM + those who have attention focused primarily on cBS.