Posted on 09/28/2004 6:02:41 PM PDT by wagglebee
Longtime CBS newsman and "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer said Monday that the Rathergate forged document scandal has been "a terrible blow" to the network's credibility.
"I love CBS. I love the people who work here. This is a terrible blow to all of us," Schieffer told the ABC Radio network's Sean Hannity.
"It's hurt us in two ways," Schieffer said. "Clearly, it's hurt our credibility. But it's also like somebody just came up and kicked us in the stomach. It's hurt us emotionally."
The top CBS newsman made his comments as the latest ratings for the CBS "Evening News" took a sharp turn for the worse, with the New York Post reporting an overall 31 percent drop in viewership for Rather's broadcast in the last week.
In his comments to Hannity, however, Schieffer did his best to present a united front, repeatedly insisting "we made a mistake" rather than pointing a finger at his longtime colleague.
"I work at CBS, so I'm going to use the term 'we'," he explained.
"Dan Rather's been my friend for 35 years. I hope he'll be my friend 35 years from now, when we're both about 120 years old. But he made a mistake. A source lied to him. Now, what we've got to find out is, why were the safeguards what happened that we didn't determine what was going on here?"
Schieffer said he intended to help rebuild his network's credibility "one story at a time," after admitting "we've got to eat a little humble pie here."
Complaining about the format........
CBS is still sticking to "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic ..."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/20/politics/main644539.shtml
And to your question, essentially, "yes." They are still playing the official record through the CBS Phoney Philter to make it appear as though GWB obtained favoritism in covering up lapses in duty, and that he disobeyed at least protocol in missing his medical.
Me too! I'd tune in anywhere and watch (except for SeeBS of course, since it would theoretically be on fire and therefore unable to broadcast 8^). Yep, I'd be watching and cheering every lick of the flames, popcorn in hand. Heck, if I was nearby I might even show up to roast a few hot dogs.
It can't be much more unpleasant than the "format" will be when he is called to testify before the grand jury.
LOL.....poor babies. They can't be obviously biased anymore!
No ambushing of the president.
Note to all Freepers: Aim lower next time.
RE your #6: "And, isn't Rather still sticking to the "info contained in the memos is still true" line?"
Yes, Rather and CBS have never admitted the memos were fabricated forgeries and until they do nothing has changed!
That only works if they have b*lls, which shouldn't be confused with leftist arrogance.
Amazingly, yes. Our local talk radio uses CBS News, and while they express [I think ratings-driven rather than ethical] concern about the forgery flap, they defend the CBS News organization. They read this piece on the air a few times a day. I don't know if they share their concern with their owner, Saga Communications.
Like many of you, we are very concerned about the CBS News document controversy. WGAN has been an affiliate of CBS Radio News for many years because they provide more services and breaking news coverage than any other radio news network. Many national radio networks have come and gone, but CBS has been providing award-winning radio news broadcasts for decades.We are monitoring the situation closely. The CBS radio and television divisions are almost entirely separate, but like you, we want to be sure that the news reported on WGAN is as accurate and balanced as possible. We have shared our concerns with the network.
No matter what the outcome of this controversy, we want you to know that our top priority continues to be bringing you the best local and national news coverage in the state of Maine.
That's simple. Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes were in collusion with top DNC operatives to distort the presidents national guard record in order to help the Kerry campaign.
When will these leftist morons admit the truth, the "safeguards" were all of the experts and family members they ignored in their quest to pin anything on Bush.
What my concern is Bob is 'did Dan Rather break any laws with his fraudulent reporting?' With his obvious bias, and considering the McCain-Feingold laws, should he, and possibly CBS, have been registered as a 527 organization?
Since Dan Rather reported this story against a sitting President AND since Dan Rather still stuck to the story when the documents were proven fraudulent, AND since Dan Rather hasn't expressed outrage for being duped, I can only think that Dan Rather, as a non-registered 527, has an ax to grind against the President of the United States? That, my friend is against the law and stinks like the old Pravda reports of the former Soviet Union!
Great news!
That sounds like a lawyered up position. If they admit the documents are fraudulent, it could open them up to exposing their sources and possible legal consequences.
They're still at it. Check this out!
CBS Uses Phony Documents to Promote Draft Hoax
RatherBiased.com ^ | September 28, 2004
Posted on 09/28/2004 9:11:30 PM CDT by RatherBiased.com
Daniel Irvin Rather must be a masochist. You'd think that in the midst of the terrible publicity he is currently getting for working closely with a partisan Democrat bent on bringing down President Bush that Dan Rather would have the good sense to lay off the liberal bias for a while. But common sense seems to be in short supply at CBS News these days.
Three weeks after he denounced the internet as being "filled with rumors," the embattled CBS anchor ran a story on his Tuesday "Evening News" program hoping to stir up fear of an impending military draft.
In a story that was a textbook example of slipshod reporting, CBS reporter Richard Schlesinger used debunked internet hoax emails and an unlabeled interest group member to scare elderly "Evening" viewers into believing that the U.S. government is poised to resume the draft.
At the center of Schlesinger's piece was a woman named Beverly Cocco, a Philadelphia woman who is "sick to my stomach" that her two sons might be drafted. In his report, Schlesinger claimed that Cocco was a Republican and portrayed her as an apolitical (even Republican) mom worried about the future.
Schlesinger did not disclose that Cocco is a chapter president of an advocacy group called People Against the Draft (PAD) which, in addition to opposing any federal proscription, seeks to establish a "peaceful, rational foreign policy" by bringing all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Like Schlesinger's Cocco, the group portrays itself as "nonpartisan"although its leadership seems to be entirely bereft of any Republicans.
The group's domain is registered to a man named Jacob Levich, a left-wing activist who in a 2001 essay compared the Bush Administration to the totalitarian government portrayed in George Orwell's 1984.
PAD also lists Anita Dutt, a Green Party activist who is also a member of an anti-war group called Bronx Action for Justice and Peace. In a March 3, 2003 New York Times profile of the group reprinted on the organization's web site, Heidi Hynes, one of its leaders, said of her fellow members that "none of us are Republicans."
Also left out of the CBS story was the fact that while there are two bills in Congress that are seeking to reestablish the draft, both of them (S-89 and HR-163) are sponsored exclusively by Democrats and have been pronounced DOA by the Republican leadership.
Much more on this to come but in the mean time, click read more to see the transcript or watch the clip by clicking on the picture to the right.
That sounds like a lawyered up position. If they admit the documents are fraudulent, it could open them up to exposing their sources and possible legal consequences.
I think the statement is a lame attempt at face saving and preservation of market share. Legally, the statement is neutral to them. "Based on what we know now .." implies that they learned something material after airing, that would have kept them from airing. But that is untenable. CBS had the same information, different only as a matter of degree between the time they aired the story and ten days later. For example, the number of experts asserting "inauthentic," the number of detail points to support that assertion; and adding Staudt to the voice of the Killians. In other words, CBS couldn't prove the documents were authentic THEN, and they knew it THEN.
That should be one of the conclusions of the investigation, but I doubt it will be. For defamation, the legal issue isn't as much the authenticity of the documents as it is whether the underlying assertions (got favors, avoided a medical exam because he had something to hide) were broadcast while knowing them to be false.
Agreed that connections to the DNC/Kerry campaign are potential legal hot water, although I haven't found a statute or rule that says so. The Federal Election statutes imply an unquestioned assumption. That assumption is that news media is independent, and equally adversarial to all political parties. The law does not appear to contemplate the possibility that a political party would work hand-in-glove with a news media outlet.
People active in liberal partisan politics enjoy a revolving door between political service and media employment. See Stepanopholous, Carville, Begala, Lockhart and others. Add to that the cozy and chummy personal relationships, and it's no wonder the liberal agenda is pushed by what is effectively a liberal propaganda machine that spans print and broadcast news media outlets. Having undeniable evidence of this go public is something CBS fears deeply. But it is too late. The revelation is underway via talk radio and the internet.
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> But he made a mistake. A source lied to him.
Sheesh, blame it right onto someone else. Dan Rather's mistake is that someone else lied to him? No, Dan Rather's mistake is that he intentionally lied to the American people, in a blatant attempt to manipulate the American election.
Is that not close to treason?
Rather deserves 20 years behind bars for this, and this jerk deserves termination from Journalism the rest of his life for "standing by his lies" so disingenuously.
CBS should be forced off the air.
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