CBS and Rather Admit Mistakes in Bush Documents 335
Vexler writes "The word this afternoon from CBS regarding the authenticity of the national guard memos of President Bush is that they cannot be trusted, confirming what several document experts had already suggested. In Dan Rather apologized for a 'mistake in judgment.' I have to wonder though: What would be the price CBS (or CNN, during the 2000 presidential election in which the final tally from Florida was changed several times before they realized that a recount may be needed) would pay for 'mistakes' of this type? What are some of your thoughts regarding 'moderating' (think /.) a news agency when it admits that more than just an honest mistake has been committed in its reporting?" There is still one big question remaining unanswered, too: who forged the memos? Where did they come from? Burkett, the man who provided them to CBS, won't say where he got them.
Re:Who did this damage more? (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, yeah...that's the idea. The Republicans manufacture some patently obvious forgeries and let them "slip" into CBS's hands. Once they're proven to be fake, the Democrats get smeared. Nice tactic, eh?
It is obvious if you put on your tinfoil hat (Score:4, Funny)
They heard that CBS was investigating the story and they immediately went in to damage control. The documents were clandestinely delivered to Kerry supporters so that they would then be given to CBS. They were made to be so juicy that CBS wouldn't be able to see through all of the drool that they were obvious forgeries.
The Bush family has a history in the intelligence business. I wouldn't put this past them.
Sure, the documents are forgeries, but is the story true or false? As it stands now, the story is in a quantum state, awaiting the collapse of a wave function.
I agree with another poster, "Kodos 2004"
John Kerry's coffin called... (Score:4, Funny)
The most important fact (Score:2, Funny)
The real victim (Score:3, Funny)
In this whole situation is the independent media. I can't see anything that CBS has done wrong from a purely journalistic point of view. They made a mistake believing Burkett, but news organizations make retraction more often than would be believed. The onus is not on the organization to report ONLY the truth, but to do vigorous fact checking, investigate itself internally, and apologize when mistakes are made. I think CBS has done that, even in the face of a bullying conservative media that I imagine would have forced the Washington Post to retract Watergate had they been as strong then. I believe that CBS checked its facts in earnest and made a mistake. But that is different entirely than broadcasting known lies (as Fox is known to do) or not having a fact-checking organization at all, like all bloggers.
The "documents are faked" cry came from conservative bloggers. Then people started wondering whether typewriters can make superscripts (they can) and a handfull of the document inspector panel said they didn't approve the documents. Of course, that's why there is a panel of experts, and not just one expert. Anytime there are documents, I imagine a few experts disagree, and they go with the weight of the panel. There is nothing particularly insidious about inspecting your documents and following expert opinion.
But the initial Bush response was not to deny the veracity of the claims. In fact, they didn't claim the documents were forged until the conservative bloggers had pushed the story into the media, which indicates at least partially that they were unsure. If they were unsure, there's a pretty good reason to believe that the allegations alleged MIGHT have some merit. Moreover, the Bush response was to say "these guys are just repeating old allegations," in other words, everybody already knows that Bush got it easy during Vietnam. To change from that to "CBS intentionally forged documents to hurt the president" is frankly absurd and intellectually dishonest.
CBS is NOT a partisan company. They make every effort to be neutral with respect to politics, so if CBS comes out tarnished as a Bush-hating medium by the conservative pundits, that will be a sad day indeed. The original post mentions the 2000 election call, which it may be recalled was originally made by Bush's cousin at Fox News. The absolute last thing we need is for more people to believe the "Rathergate" hype and to fall into the "liberal media bias" mythology.