Washington Post carves up Dan Rather/CBS

[Cowperson]

A detailed look at the CBS/Dan Rather/Bush memo fiasco from the Washington Post, a government controlled/Liberal media source owned by a large corporation (sic).

A fascinating read on how to screw up a story.

Because the White House had never seen the Bush Memo's, allegedly from a private file and outside the military loop, a Bush spokesman did not challenge their authenticity.

Later, Bartlett would explain why he did not challenge the documents with a question: "How am I supposed to verify something that came from a dead man in three hours?"

With the White House not challenging the documents, CBS reasoned they had to be worth gold.

At that point, said "60 Minutes" executive Josh Howard, "we completely abandoned the process of authenticating the documents. Obviously, looking back on it, that was a mistake. We stopped questioning ourselves. I suppose you could say we let our guard down."

The Washington Post with a great exhumation of the facts, also naming Bill Burkett, a Texas Democrat, as the likely source of the memo's, an unproven allegation.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6039473/

Cowperson

[transplant99]

One BRUTAL piece of "journalism", from the supposedly unbiased CBS crew.

They are caught with their pants down and STILL won't come clean that they were snookered.

Terrible dis-service to the American people by an old and lethargic Dan Rather. I used to be a fan of his....25 years ago. Now? He needs to be replaced. Walter Conkrite set a standard at CBS that simply has never been matched IMO. Too bad.

[Cowperson]

As a bonus, the man named as a source, Bill Burkett, says he gave information to the Democrats to counter the Swiftboat campaign:

The retired Guard official, Bill Burkett, said in an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats that after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail Saturday.

"I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. (Cleland) said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with," Burkett wrote.

Democrats disavow any knowledge of this as per the attached story:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselect...8-exguard_x.htm

Cowperson

[Lanny_MacDonald]

Rather and CBS should be carved up for their unprofessionalism. I don't know what is so hard to understand about this. You screw up, you deserve to get pounced on. The big question I have, is why isn't Fox taken to task so aggressively for their "questionable" reporting? Everyone is guilty in this year of electioneering. Where it the journalistic integrity that used to be so important? Lost with the corporate ideal of appealing to your market share and not going against the wishes of those who sign your pay cheques? The mass media is a joke and no longer can be trusted to give the straight poop about what is going on.

[Cowperson]

Originally posted by Lanny_MacDonald@Sep 19 2004, 09:19 PM
Rather and CBS should be carved up for their unprofessionalism.

And he has been carved up - in the mainstream media as demonstrated in the original link in this thread which leaves your last comment below dripping in irony:

The mass media is a joke and no longer can be trusted to give the straight poop about what is going on.

Meanwhile, a Pew study of where people are getting their campaign news (published in January), with some great debate points:

http://people-press.org/reports/disp...3?ReportID=200

And a further look at the issue from a government controlled/Liberal bias, corporate owned mainstream media source today with some interesting insight:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5520569/

Lastly, I was watching an early Sunday morning roundtable of journalists this morning - can't remember the network - and one remarked that a change he's noticed in the last 15 years or so is people tend to seek out news outlets which agree with their already formed opinions versus looking for pure information.

Hence the popularity of say Rush Limbaugh in one medium and Michael Moore in another.

Preaching to the choir.

Cowperson

[Cowperson]

An update, the anvil finally falling on the head of CBS:

CBS/60 Minutes withdraws the Bush memo story and apologizes.

Dan Rather apologizes.

Rather said that "after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically."

"I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers," he said.

"We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry," Rather added.

In addition,

CBS said former Texas Guard official Bill Burkett "has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents" and "admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."

Burkett is a Democrat.

It is still unclear who gave Burkett the documents and who forged them.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/...ain641481.shtml

Cowperson

[Cowperson]

A few additions:

A very hilarious Mark Steyn column in the Chicago Sun-Times totally destroying Dan Rather . . . . a day old but worth the time.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn...t-steyn19.html

There's not much journalists like more than catching their own kind with a hand in the cookie jar.

Secondly, the Wall Street Journal with an editorial four days ago declaring the Dan Rather fiasco will be the end of "the liberal media monopoly in America."

The Rather episode shows that a competitive media marketplace serves the cause of truth, and does so with impressive speed. It also reminds us of the dangers of arrogance and complacency--temptations from which none of us, regardless of ideology, are immune.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/fe...ml?id=110005627

Cowperson