Per Drudge, Dan Rather has released a statement:
Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.
That is close to what they said but there are some key differences. Here is the actual statement (from 9/15):
"We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of corroborating evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that’s what we are doing."
Translation:
"The memos are legitimate. We believe they are legitimate. We believe the story is legitimate. Some people who do not agree are raising questions which we cannot answer. After ignoring these questions for 5 days, they did not go away as we had hoped. Therefore, we find ourselves needing to look into whether they have any merit (which they do not) to preserve what little credibility we have left."
Here we are, 12 days after the original 60 Minutes II broadcast and 11 days into the firestorm now known as memogate and it appears that CBS is still trying to spin their way out of it instead of coming clean.
Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically.
...only personalistically and ideologically…
I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press,
...which they found themselves unable to shout down…
leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.
..."the documents in question” meaning “the questionable documents”...
But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.
Now that, my friends is a warm, steaming load of crap. The story was a hit piece on a Republican presidential candidate from Dan Rather (a Democrat) using information from Bill Burkett (another Democrat). The lack of authenticity of the documents is obvious enough that amateurs easily identified and cataloged a long list of flaws both in form and content. We now know that some of the experts used by CBS raised questions but were ignored. CBS had to run through a series of red lights to get into this train wreck.
Please know that nothing is more important to us than people’s trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.
It is a bummer when you sacrifice what you identify as your most important goal in order to take a shot at someone you would rather not see re-elected. The initial report was both unfair and untruthful, and the irony of the entire mess is that it could have been cleaned up so easily with a simple retraction and apology on September 10th.
Here is the retraction - 10 days too late, but do not mistake this for an apology. He apologizes for a “lack of judgment” immediately after whining that they were misled on how their source came to posses the documents; yet there was ample evidence within the documents alone to kill this story.
The true lack of judgment was to ignore the evidence before their eyes and the opinions of several of their hired experts. Admitting that will be almost as devastating to their credibility as not admitting it.
I agree that CBS should be thrashed for committing a major journalistic sin and not checking their sources, but out of curiosity, how would you differentiate between Memogate and the way the press initially handled a story like the Swift Boats Veterans for Truth?
Granted, with the Swift Boats there were no forged documents, but the press gave the story a lot of airplay to unproven (and perhaps unprovable) allegations against Kerry. the Swift Boat story really was not critically examined until about two weeks into the controversy, which is a bit late for such a big story.
The Editior & Publisher story I linked to above points out that the Washington Post had run a story that gave equal credibility to both groups, even though the Swift Boat Veterans did not have a paper trail to back themselves up and their tesitmony crontradicted official military records.
And at some point, the entire controversy became absurb. Why was it a news item that Bob Dole thought Kerry didn’t “bleed enough” for his Purple Heart?
Both the CBS Memos and the Swift Boat story are examples of the press not taking their jobs seriously enough, a trend that I fear is not good for our democracy.
In this day and age when corporatization of news has translated into sensationalistic fluff (All Scott Peterson, All the Time!) or partisan talking points thinly disguised as news, who do we trust and by what standard ?
Actually, I think that there is a marked difference between the two events in two different ways.
Content: Memogate involves highly disputed memos with an anonymous source whereas SwiftVets involves men who served alongside Kerry and are making a public statement about how they feel.
Media Response: CBS jumped on the memos and ran with the story despite warnings from some of their experts. When the Swift-Vets book came out and they started running ads, the response by the media was rather tepid (and appropriately so). It was news but it definitely is a group with an adgenda against Mr. Kerry.
If they cover Move On events (anti-Bush people), then they also should be covering the Swift Vets (anti-Kerry people). However, they are not taking the Move On ads (or demonstration signs) as evidence that Bush actually is Hitler. In the same way, they are not taking the Swift Vet statements as evidence that Kerry was a lousy officer. (In my opinion, either action would be par with what CBS has done with the forged memos.)
I do agree that the media majors on the minors and minors on the majors far too often. Events 30 years ago are much less important than recent history. One reason Kerry is behind (in my opinon) is that his campaign appears to be rooted in 1970 and he is stuck refighting those battles while Bush is campaigning in the here and now.
After reading your response and thinking about the media issue, it strikes me ironic how both the Left and the Right feel that the media favors the other side.
For years I have heard accusations from conservatives of a liberal bias (i.e. NPR and CNN) and particulary since 9/11 liberals have accused the media of a conservative bias (i.e. FOX News and the Wall Street Journal).
Both sides seem to feel that the media does a better job presenting the other side’s views and pursues stories with the other side’s bias and bent.
It’s actually kind of funny. Any thoughts about that?
I think your observation is correct. Both sides are very touchy about perceived bias in the Media, which is supposed to be neutral.
Since that is a sensitive issue, both sides find exactly what they are looking for: bias against themselves, while remaining blind to any bias against the other side. (These biases may be real or perceived...it doesn’t matter.)
It reminds me of watching a football game with extreme fans. Their team is never responsible for penalties called against them and the referee is blind when they make such a silly call. Yet the other team is guilty on every play.
http://king-of-fools.com/blog/trackback/1275/RW6SBcne/