The Boston Globe is backing off the story, right?
Guess who was banking on David Hailey's discredited work? Rathergate's own Mary Mapes.
From the Dallas Observer:
CBS News didn't return calls for comment, and Mapes declined to discuss Hodges' charges. "I can't, I just can't," she says. But she did forward a study by Utah State University Associate Professor David Hailey disputing the contention that the memos were created on a word processor using digital type rather than a '70s-era typewriter--the key challenge to their authenticity. "I really believe they are not digitally produced," Hailey says. "I'm not saying that they're authentic. I'm saying they were probably typewritten. That doesn't make them authentic. But it does take CBS off the hook a little bit."
I have it on good authority that Utah State University requested that the now discredited work of Associate Professor David E. Hailey, Jr., Ph.D be done. If true, this changes the story dramatically from an independent work of a faculty member to a university sanctioned project gone terribly wrong.
Were the findings peer reviewed, if so by whom? Which administration officials were involved in commissioning the work and/or authorizing publication? The list of questions is long, and I intend to get a statement from university officials Friday morning.
Update: The University apparently took his site down. Not just this project, but the whole site.
Update 2: I have been in contact with university officials, who are reviewing the situation. They will be back to me with a statement shortly. There's More! Read the rest of the story »
Backstory
Paul, as noted in the initial article, contacted university officials about Hailey's work that intended to prove the documents used by CBS were created on a typewriter. Between the time of that call and the initial publication of our story, Hailey set out to cover his tracks by changing his documents to explain away our findings. We weren't kidding about having copies of everything, it just took us a while to get them up and available for comparison.
Pavel, whose questioning helped propel our rushed coverage, has now seen what we saw 2 days ago and has created a PDF difference file (wicked cool, BTW) that verifies everything Paul said about the good professor trying desperately to cover his tracks.
Paul Adds There has been some confusion during this whole event. To try to be brief, I called the University with my concerns and after I wrote my initial post, the Professor edited his work.
Within seconds of learning this I made a post saying I'd evaluate his "new evidence." While his new updates did make it clear he was not claiming they were actually physically typed, unfortunately for the professor, they exposed critical flaws in his methodology and to be frank, appeared to damn him more.
To fully understand the whole thing you must read all the updates on the original posts and reading the 200 or so comments would not hurt either. -P