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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Fri. 09/17/04 05:57:45 PM
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The Latest on CBSgate V The saga of Daniel Milhous Rather continues. Okay. Not necessarily the latest. Just the latest I've found.
The Chicago Tribune editorial is especially noteworthy (brackets in original). + + + + + Every day in this country, thousands of journalists try hard to earn and keep the trust of their readers, listeners and viewers. Now, with what looks like shoddy reporting on George W. Bush's career in the Texas Air National Guard, anchorman Dan Rather and his colleagues at CBS News have made it harder for all those other journalists to earn and keep trust. Last week, CBS claimed it had obtained four memos from the early 1970s that raised new questions about Bush's service in the Guard. Internet bloggers cited clues in the typography of the memos suggesting they are forgeries. CBS retorted that each document "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." In his Friday newscast, Rather huffily blamed part of the challenge to CBS on "partisan political operatives." He insisted CBS had obtained the memos from "unimpeachable sources." But ABC News, The Washington Post and others have since reported that: - Emily Will, a document expert retained by CBS, said Tuesday she had e-mailed to CBS her five concerns about the memos three days before the network aired its story. In a call to a CBS producer, Will said, "I repeated all my objections as strongly as I could." Will says she warned: "If you air the program on Wednesday, on Thursday you're going to have hundreds of document examiners raising the same questions." - Another expert consulted by CBS, Linda James, said Tuesday she told CBS the documents "had problems," and she questioned "whether they were produced on a computer." Asked whether CBS took her authenticity concerns seriously, James responded: "Evidently not." - A former Texas Guard commander whom CBS prominently cited in defending its authentication process said he was misled by CBS and now thinks the memos are fakes. - Marcel Matley, the lead expert cited by CBS, said Monday: "There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate [the memos]." Matley said he examined only the signature of the late officer who purportedly wrote the memos and he couldn't rule out the possibility that the officer's signature had been lifted from other documents and placed on phony memos. That officer's former secretary says she thinks the memos are fakes, but that they reflect the officer's thinking. On Wednesday, Rather finally acknowledged questions about the memos' authenticity but insisted the sentiment they conveyed was correct. As if to say: This just in! We think George W. Bush got special treatment! Nice try, but that charge is old news. The new news was CBS' "Gotcha!" memos. The fact that Adolf Hitler allegedly had thoughts similar to some in those long discredited "Hitler's diaries" doesn't make them more than sleazy frauds. The president of CBS News now says the network will "redouble its efforts" to investigate the documents. The time to do that was before the story aired. And some journalists wonder why many Americans think we're biased, arrogant and inaccurate. The burden of proof here was on Rather and Co. If they did ignore warnings from experts, they hurt a lot of honest reporters. News organizations that relied in part on CBS' story the Tribune included put some faith in CBS News' credibility. Only to learn that the network may have had its trademark eye wide shut. + + + + + The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes. Lane Core Jr. CIW P Fri. 09/17/04 05:57:45 PM |
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