Monday, January 10, 2005
Endgame
Finally. From CNN:
It's nice to notice that even the Associated Press and all major news outlets are now definitively calling the documents "forgeries", not "alleged forgeries" or even "probable forgeries". (The report itself says one can never be 100% certain, but does prove in detail that the documents were not made in the early 70s, so the lack of a stated "100%" proof appears to be a legal, lawsuit-saving hedge, since their conclusion is clear.) It's also nice to see a criticism of the "rigid and blind" defense of the documents long after 99% of experts in the country had debunked them; the sheer arrogance that CBS displayed, the "we are Big Media and you will believe anything we tell you" crap, is really what did them in. After all, as we've seen so many times, Americans can forgive a mistake -- not a cover-up.
Many bloggers are furious at this "slap on the wrist" from the panel, notably Hugh Hewitt and others who were convinced the matter stemmed from intentional political bias and a desire to discredit the president before an election. I've always been one camp below that, believing that political bias is what led them to blindly accept anything that was anti-Bush (and blindly reject anything anti-Kerry), and that this qualified. More simply stated, some believe CBS knew the documents were fakes but thought they could get away with running them anyway (and hurt the President), whereas I tend to believe that they assumed they were genuine and just didn't bother checking them, because again they supported their pre-existing bias against the President. Either way is unforgiveable, of course, and those who were fired were fired deservedly. Did anyone really think the panel was going to implicate CBS in a massive conspiracy? Come on, now. I think this is a pretty positive move for CBS News, and a final (though waaaaay-overdue) public admission that a hell of a lot of people really, really messed up.
The full 234-page (!) report (in .pdf form) is here; exhibits and examples can be found here.
Thanks again for making the short-lived defeatjohnjohn blog a success, and I'm happy to have played a part in making media more accountable.
Finally. From CNN:
NEW YORK (AP) -- Four CBS employees were fired Monday following the release of an independent investigation into a "60 Minutes Wednesday" story about President Bush's military service that relied on forged documents.The defeatjohnjohn blog (this site's election-time "sister blog") is proud to have been among the first four websites to help expose these obvious forgeries, and the only blog to offer a highly-publicized $50,000+ challenge to anyone who could reasonably recreate the documents from a typewriter available in 1972. (No one could.) I was flattered and shocked at the amount of national publicity the blog received, and was happy to retain tens of thousands of these new readers through the election.
The network fired Mary Mapes, producer of the report; Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday" and his top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice president Betsy West.
Dan Rather, the anchor of the "CBS Evening News" who served as the story's correspondent, announced in November he would be stepping down from his anchor position in March. Rather did not mention the controversy when he made his announcement.
According to a CBS statement, an independent panel appointed by the network concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in putting together the piece, which aired September 8. That failure was compounded with a "rigid and blind" defense of the report, the statement continued.
It's nice to notice that even the Associated Press and all major news outlets are now definitively calling the documents "forgeries", not "alleged forgeries" or even "probable forgeries". (The report itself says one can never be 100% certain, but does prove in detail that the documents were not made in the early 70s, so the lack of a stated "100%" proof appears to be a legal, lawsuit-saving hedge, since their conclusion is clear.) It's also nice to see a criticism of the "rigid and blind" defense of the documents long after 99% of experts in the country had debunked them; the sheer arrogance that CBS displayed, the "we are Big Media and you will believe anything we tell you" crap, is really what did them in. After all, as we've seen so many times, Americans can forgive a mistake -- not a cover-up.
Many bloggers are furious at this "slap on the wrist" from the panel, notably Hugh Hewitt and others who were convinced the matter stemmed from intentional political bias and a desire to discredit the president before an election. I've always been one camp below that, believing that political bias is what led them to blindly accept anything that was anti-Bush (and blindly reject anything anti-Kerry), and that this qualified. More simply stated, some believe CBS knew the documents were fakes but thought they could get away with running them anyway (and hurt the President), whereas I tend to believe that they assumed they were genuine and just didn't bother checking them, because again they supported their pre-existing bias against the President. Either way is unforgiveable, of course, and those who were fired were fired deservedly. Did anyone really think the panel was going to implicate CBS in a massive conspiracy? Come on, now. I think this is a pretty positive move for CBS News, and a final (though waaaaay-overdue) public admission that a hell of a lot of people really, really messed up.
The full 234-page (!) report (in .pdf form) is here; exhibits and examples can be found here.
Thanks again for making the short-lived defeatjohnjohn blog a success, and I'm happy to have played a part in making media more accountable.
