Boston Globe apology: A lapse on National Guard story

....I do not agree with readers who say the Globe should have held off writing about the CBS broadcast until it made its own verification. The Globe had no reason at that point to doubt the network's judgment. And newspapers routinely report important news generated by other media outlets as a way of keeping readers informed. That's their job.

But I do think that in the week after the initial CBS broadcast, the paper could have better reflected the emerging doubts, either by publishing available wire service stories or, better yet, developing its own. The Globe has a history of being out front on researching the candidates' military backgrounds, and it wasn't on this shifting story.

"We should have put more of our own investigative effort into that Friday story," reflects Mark Morrow, a deputy managing editor who has edited stories on Bush's military background. As it was, that Friday paper covered emerging doubts about the memos in a single paragraph in late editions, based on The Washington Post's reporting. As for publishing more the next day, Morrow says, "we should have."

......John Yemma, the deputy managing editor overseeing political coverage, says that, in retrospect, the paper was "not vigilant enough" in monitoring the wires for updates on the story. National political editors naturally focus on the race and the issues at stake on Election Day, he says, and "we were too slow to respond when the media itself became the story."

Some readers last week said the Globe has a "liberal bias" that made it too slow to report the collapse of the memos' credibility. ........

"Precisely because the Globe is Kerry's home town paper," says Offen, the reader from Newton, "it has an obligation to be out front so that no one could accuse it of bias."

I do not agree with readers who say the Globe should have held off writing about the CBS broadcast until it made its own verification. The Globe had no reason at that point to doubt the network's judgment"

Actually, the Globe reported the Story on page A1 on Sept.8th--BEFORE the CBS 60 Minutes report. She's lying!

( Boston Globe Archives, 2004-09-10 )
THE GLOBE SPOTLIGHT TEAM HAS SCORED ANOTHER BULL'S-EYE WITH ITS REPORT ON GEORGE W. BUSH'S VIOLATION OF HIS CONTRACT WITH THE GOVERNMENT FOR SERVICE IN THE AIR NATIONAL GUARD, AND HIS STAFF'S SUBSEQUENT EGREGIOUS DENIAL AND MISREPRESENTATION OF THE FACTS (PAGE A1, SEPT. 8).

1.What did the Spotlight team know--and when did they know it?
2.Who gave them the information?
3.Why did the Boston Globe rely on the same expert as the NYT, Colonel Gerald Lechliter (ret.), as the source for an analysis of the Air National Guard service record? Who is Col. Lechliter? Did he contact the Globe? Shouldn't his background be a matter of public record under the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics?

Wasn't this a case of the Kerry campaign coordinating an attack with the NYT, Globe and CBS on Bush's Air National Guard Service on the same day?

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