"CBS Ousts 4 For Bush Guard Story"

Here's the news as reported by CBS, today:

Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush’s National Guard service.

The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with a “rigid and blind” defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report.

Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.

The correspondent on the story, CBS News anchor Dan Rather, is stepping down as anchor of CBS Evening News....

The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with a “rigid and blind” defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report. We didn't need no steenkin' investigation to tell us that.

And, in case you are worried, Faithful Reader, do not fret. West, Howard, Murphy, and Mapes will not be outcast for incompetence and perfidy, their families homeless & starving in the streets. O, no! Their comrades in the Democratic Establishment — whether the media branch or the political branch — will not let them suffer very long. True, they failed; but, they had the best of intentions — to rid the country of the infamous Adolf W. Bushitler. And their desires shall not go unrequited. Maybe their future career(s) will not be heralded by fanfare that will ever reach our eyes and ears; but, those who have given up so much for the cause will surely not be left to languish.

P.S. See Sensible Mom's CBS Investigation:

.... Their disinterest in objectively vetting the story is indicative of their lack of respect for President Bush. That's bias pure and simple. After all, if you respected someone and a potentially damaging story surfaced about him, wouldn't you research every angle thoroughly before reporting it? They didn't do that, not because they wanted to report the story first (Mary Mapes had been looking into it for more that 4 years), but because they wanted to inflict damage on President Bush.

Think of it this way. What do you think the chances are that forged documents indicating John Forbes Kerry had disobeyed a direct order and used influential connections to keep him as much out of harm's way as possible when he was in Vietnam — what do you think the chances are that Mary Mapes and Dan Rather would have rushed a story onto the air about them?

I know, I know: the only things that would have had less chance of getting on the air at CBS would have been absolutely real documents indicating John Forbes Kerry had disobeyed a direct order and used influential connections to keep him as much out of harm's way as possible when he was in Vietnam........

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/10/05 06:50:56 PM
Categorized as Media.