PressThink: Does CBS News Have a Political Future in This State?

Does CBS News Have a Political Future in This State?

The affiliates are hearing it. There's a campaign to get Bob Schieffer dumped from the debates. William Safire is asking about criminal charges. And some of the worst ever numbers for media trust were just released. From the CBS truth commission we need something... dramatic.

There are signs that the controversy is hurting CBS and anchor Dan Rather at the local level. Bob Lee, general manager of WBDJ-TV in Roanoke and president of the CBS Affiliates Association, said he has heard from many stations and “we’re all being battered.” —Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, Sep. 23

Two days ago, CBS announced its two-person truth commission. Richard Thornburgh, Attorney General during parts of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and a former governor of Pennsylvania. Louis D. Boccardi, former chief executive of the Associated Press, where he worked for 36 years. (Press release.)

Not well known to the public, Lou Boccardi is a natural choice within the industry, and a proven commodity— “one of three outsiders who served last year on a committee with reporters and editors of The New York Times that investigated the repeated fabrications of a former reporter, Jayson Blair,” said the Times.

The Thornburgh appointment is the fascinating part. A politician. Former federal prosecutor and snarling TV commentator Victoria Toensing told Kurtz that Thornburgh is a good choice for CBS “because he’s a Republican, so it doesn’t look partisan the wrong way.”

Partisan the wrong way. Hmmm. Well, why name a politician at all? Why a Republican and why this one? Why not a Democrat? Why not a Democrat and a Republican? Isn’t balance a watchword anymore? What’s the thinking here, CBS? “CBS executives declined to elaborate on the selection of Mr. Thornburgh,” said the Journal Sep. 23. Not in a sharing mood, I guess. Mike Wallace had some thoughts, however: “It occurs to me that on the team of investigators should be someone who has experience with how a television piece is put together,” Wallace said. “He has none, as far as I know.”

It has seemed to me since the first weekend of this crisis that CBS was in political danger because of something that had gone wrong with its journalism. It had to fight a war for legitimacy and reputation, and that’s a political struggle, but since the news division was the one involved in the fight, CBS had to also claim that it had no politics at all. This is not a recipe for clarity.

It is the ruling fiction at a network news division: we’re professional news people, and we don’t “do” politics. Just the other day this was said. Spokeswoman Kelli Edwards on Sep. 21: “It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda.” She was reacting to news that Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign had been involved in a deal to secure the memos from CBS’s source, Bill Burkett.

It would be routine for CBS News to identify former Governor Richard Thornburgh as a Republican in any reporting it did. After all, he is one. But he’s not a Republican in the CBS announcement of the review committee. That word does not appear. One reason, I guess, is that CBS would have to provide Boccardi’s party affiliation if Thornburgh’s were given. And Boccardi doesn’t identify that way. He’s a newsie.

See the tension?

Because of that tension, which is at the very heart of this scandal, Thornburgh and Boccardi have a shot at pulling CBS through, but it will be very difficult given that we’re in a tense election. The first big decision they have to make is whether to finish a report before Election Day— a very tough call. A political decision, in fact.

But then so was the decision to have a review in the first place. For reasons not made clear at the time, Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, and Leslie Moonves, chairman of CBS Television and co-president of the CBS parent, Viacom, were allowed to define the scope of inquiry into events where they are implicated— heavily so.

Look at the charge that Heyward and Moonves gave the Committee, as per the CBS announcement on Sep. 22:

to help determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken.

This begins in the logical place: where were the screw ups in the story? It ends in the logical place: what do we do now to fix it? And it pretends that twelve days in the calendar don’t exist.

That would be the period from Sep. 9, when problems first emerged, to Sep. 20, when CBS announced that it no longer had confidence in the report it aired on President Bush and his National Guard service. Ernest Miller has a detailed timeline in two-parts: here and here. Only by reading these posts, and clicking through to the links, can an observer fully appreciate CBS’s stonewalling and why it matters.

My NYU colleague Adam Penenberg, writing in Wired, summarizes what went down:

At first, Rather refused to consider the possibility that CBS had been duped, brushing off both journalists, who he called “the professional rumor mill,” and bloggers, whose “motivations” he questioned.
Feeling the heat, CBS produced experts to buttress its story, only to have them recant. Some claimed they had warned CBS about the documents. Others believed they had been misled or their findings misinterpreted. Meanwhile, the Associated Press retained its own expert who concluded the memos had most likely been word-processed. ABC, CNN, NBC, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and USA Today weighed in on the growing media scandal — all of which prompted CBS to announce its own investigation.

What happened between those two dates (Sep. 9-20) is critical to the politics and the journalism of the story. And, of course, we find some critical actions taken—or not taken—by Heyward, as Dan Rather’s boss, and Moonves, head of CBS. Here are five clusters the review panel should investigate:

Who’s idea was it to allow the network’s star anchorman and public face, Dan Rather, to keep deepening his—and the brand’s—exposure to massive credibility loss by maintaining a pose of absolute certainty, and going out of his way to demean challengers or dismiss them as political hacks?

What did CBS hope to gain by having Rather explode in frustration across the news pages, simultaneously showing that he was mildly to wildly out of touch with his enviornment and with the status of a breaking story? (Most memorably when he said to Howard Kurtz on Sep. 15, “If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I’d like to break that story.”) If someone at CBS wanted to have Rather publicly destroy himself, then for that purpose the network made the correct moves. But why would someone want to do that?

Who made the decision to say publicly there is no investigation underway at 60 minutes, when the only responsible option CBS had at that point was to investigate?

How did it come to pass that a group of employees at CBS News, associated with one program, 60 Minutes Wednesday, were allowed to use the CBS Evening News, another program, essentially to shore up the thesis for a story of theirs that was being attacked in a public controversy that had itself become news? Didn’t this turn the nightly newscast into an advocacy program? Isn’t that against the rules?

Michael Dobbs of the Washington Post put it this way in an online chat with Post readers Tuesday: “I had serious suspicions about the authenticity of the documents on the morning after they were aired. I find it difficult to believe that people in CBS did not develop similar doubts soon afterward.” What happened to those people within the organization, and why they did not get through to decision-makers? Jim Rutenberg, Sep. 19: “One mystery among CBS staff members is why network officials remained so confident for so long about the documents as so many questions arose.”

(I was trying to get the same point across in a post that asked: Did the President of CBS News Have Anyone in Charge of Reading the Internet and Sending Alerts?)

All five of my clusters ultimately involve judgments made by Heyward, as Rather’s boss, and Moonves, as Heyward’s. The investigation has to go there or it avoids many of the story’s scariest parts. But look at the official charge: “What errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken.” To me it’s clear: Heyward and Moonves tried to tell the Review Committeee to skip their part in a sad parade.

Of course this was noticed right away. (Transparency not being a CBS strong suit, the people there don’t seem to know when they are being transparent.) Ernest Miller at Corante pointed it out: “If this panel is not going to look into the terrible errors that took place after the broadcast, it is clear that CBS News is not truly interested in resolving this matter and holding itself to the highest standards of journalism.”

Jeff Jarvis (I nominated him for the committee, but that suggestion was not taken up) complained too: “CBS is charging them only to look into how the forged docs got onto the air, nothing after, nothing more. Big mistake. Muffed opportunity. Frightened and frightening lack of vision.”

They were right, but spoke a little too soon. The politics of the review situation are starting to work. The Wall Street Journal quotes Boccardi expanding the commitee’s charge, showing that he and Thornburgh are the ones in charge. Miller, a Yale law school fellow as well as a blogger, has the passage:

Mr. Boccardi, who retired from the AP in 2003, said the panel would study not only the process by which the Sept. 8 report anchored by Dan Rather was prepared and broadcast, but also the network’s reaction to questions challenging the piece after it aired. CBS and Mr. Rather initially stood firmly behind the story and the documents and that has generated almost as much criticism as the report itself did. “That is very much part of what we’re going to look at,” Mr. Boccardi said.

That Heyward and Moonves are not happy with the larger investigation is probably what’s behind this bit, also from the WSJ:

A CBS spokeswoman said the primary focus of the panel is the reporting of the story itself, not the aftermath. While there is no timeline for the panel to conclude its investigation, she said the hope is “it moves along at a good pace.”

Dan Rather understands what the presidents are doing. Listen to him widen the net of responsibility, getting on the record early with how involved the higher-ups actually were. (New York Times, Sep. 23)

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Rather said that on learning that Ms. Mapes had obtained the documents, he called Mr. Heyward.
“This is not verbatim,” Mr. Rather recalled. “But I said: ‘Andrew, if true, it’s breakthrough stuff. But I need to do something unusual. It may even be unique. I have to ask you to oversee, in a hands-on way, the handling of this story, because this is potentially the kind of thing that will cause great controversy.’

“He got it. He immediately agreed.”

In other words, the two men knew they were about to make a political decision. I wonder how many at CBS will get it and immediately agree with Roy Peter Clark of Poynter, a man with political imagination, who has a very good idea:

The independent investigators, now identified as Dick Thornburgh and Lou Boccardi, should conduct public hearings on the CBS scandal. These should be televised by CBS.

He’s not kidding— the CBS hearings televised on CBS. Something like this is needed if the network is going to get the public service mantle back quickly. You have to perform a big public service… on yourself. (Jeff Jarvis had a similar idea.) Clark’s vision of it:

Imagine a week of televised hearings in which the investigators would question Dan Rather, producers and reporters from “60 Minutes,” other news executives, and rank and file journalists from CBS. Perhaps other players outside the network could be called to shed some additional light: Political figures, press secretaries, other journalists, even ethicists. Thornburgh, who served as attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, would ask questions that shed light on our law and politics. Former president of AP Boccardi would help us measure the performance of CBS against enduring and emerging journalistic standards. Along the way, hundreds of other voices would weigh in, from talk radio, cable television, letters to the editor, and blogs.

My own judgment is that something dramatic is called for— like a week of televised hearings, but it could be some other creative idea. Let’s not forget there are CBS affiliates hearing from a lot of angry people. (See this.) There’s a campaign to get Bob Schieffer dumped from the debates. William Safire is asking about criminal charges. And some of the worst ever poll numbers for media trust have just been released.

A spectacular act of public listening might allow CBS to re-claim some initiative here.

Now Political Man—in the person of Dick Thornburgh, a Republican—will sit down with a career News Guy (Boccardi, party unknown) and they will sift through Dan Rather’s fallen tale of the Texas Air National Guard. They will have to reach a common understanding, which might be the most valuble “product” the review has. This is about politics. This is about news. This is about the politics of news, and such things as political ambition “in” journalism, which is not the same as partisan purpose, even though partisan purpose is involved too. And this is also about a raw attempt to discredit CBS, and Dan Rather— a long-held dream among some on the Right.

At stake are some big things: does CBS News have a political future? Will it run again? And can it ever win in this state?

After Matter: Notes, reactions and links…

Big Fallout: ‘60 Minutes’ Delays Report Questioning Reasons for Iraq War (New York Times, Sep. 25):

CBS said last night that the report on the war would not run before Nov. 2. “We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election,” the spokeswoman, Kelli Edwards, said in a statement.

In a way that’s the network’s biggest admission yet: we don’t have the credibility now to run that story.

Wall Street Journal: “It is possible that the choice of Dick Thornburgh sends a signal to Republicans in terms of the desire by CBS to have legitimacy with this review panel,” said Bob Steele, a member of the ethics faculty at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. However, Mr. Steele noted that Mr. Thornburgh “carries a political pedigree in a story that is so politicized that it seems debatable, and perhaps even unwise, to heighten the politicizing element of what is going on.”

Complications in the liberal media: Sumner Redstone says he is a liberal democrat who supports the Republicans. Why? They’re good for Viacom. Opinion Journal: “Guess Who’s a GOP Booster? The CEO of CBS’s parent company endorses President Bush.” Plus: Redstone quoted in the New York Post: “The investigation is ‘appropriate — and the consequences will be appropriate,’ Redstone told the business magazine Forbes at a conference in Hong Kong.”

New twist on the bias debate: JD Lasica, Google News: Unintentionally skewing to the right? (Online Journalism Review.)

Vaugh Ververs in the National Journal (Sep. 24) says the Bush team has already rejected the idea of dumping CBS’s Bob Schieffer as debate moderator.

Why do you care if CBS goes under? A PressThink reader, Richard Frost, asked me that in the following note:

You seem very concerned that CBS News may be de-legitimized. I must confess, I don’t understand why this possibility should be so distressing to you. The press (and society) have long supported investigations, both legal and governmental, of business for any number of possible abuses; stock manipultations, environmental damage, sexual harassment, pension management, and insider trading come to mind. Proven wrongdoing can result in penalties, both civil and criminal, in which businesses may suffer tremendous loss of credibility or even be put out of business.
Why should CBS, or any media organization, be exempt? We are generally skeptical of proposals by any industry to regulate itself, especially when there has been a history of problems or an important breach of trust. We also think that harsh penalties are effective deterrents to serious wrongdoing by other players. Is there some reason to think that similar logic does not apply to the press? Or, if it does apply, is there some mitigating circumstance or fact that should take precedence?

Dorothy Rabinowitz, commentary in the Wall Street Journal: “… journalists might do better, in short, to wish Mr. Rather and company well in this hard time, and then declare the obvious. Which is that there are some things in human experience that ought to be granted their own uniqueness. On the grounds of its mysteries alone, the CBS-National Guard story deserves to be one of them.”

Jeffrey A. Dvorkin, NPR ombudsman on the blogs and the Rather story: “we must acknowledge that the blogs have truly arrived. It is hard for journalists who have led a sheltered life without public accountability to acknowledge that those days are over.”

Culmination of a 40-year-long indictment? Fascinating history of the conservative movement’s claims against the liberal media, tracing things back to Goldwater in 1964. John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard: Dan Rather’s Day of Reckoning:

From the bloggers who blew the whistle on the fabrications to the millions of Internet news consumers who could not get enough of every twist and turn in the unbelievable unfolding story, there was a definite sense that history was turning on a dime, that the exposure of CBS’s infamy by non-journalists with a new ability to communicate through the Internet heralded the dawn of the New Information Age.
That’s why, even though the precipitating event was a genuine outrage—CBS News’s breathless use of forged documents accusing George W. Bush of disobeying a direct order from his National Guard superior in an all-too-obvious effort to sway the opinions of voters only 48 days before the 2004 election—the outrage has been accompanied by a spirit of giddiness and exhilaration almost from the moment the onslaught began.

This is a moment that’s been a very long time coming. For four decades now, conservatives have been convinced, with supreme justification, that the institutional, ideological, and cultural biases of the mainstream media represented a danger to the causes in which they believe and the ideas they hold dear. What has happened over the past weeks isn’t the beginning of a transformation. It’s the culmination of a 40-year-long indictment that has, at long last, led to a slam-dunk conviction.

Here’s a good round up of blog reactions to the CBS surrender on Sep. 20 from Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice.

Eric Boehlert in Salon: Too much about memos, too little about war. “As the election nears, will TV news finally get tough and really cover the Iraq war?”

Bruce Benidt in the Star Tribune: “The bad journalism isn’t just not checking out the possibly doctored documents — it’s breathlessly chasing the flashy story to begin with. CBS was hoist on its own petard. 60 Minutes and its spinoffs and imitators have reveled so long in their ‘gotcha’ approach that they’ve crossed from journalism through entertainment and into pandering.”

Scott Rosenberg of Salon, Bloggers and Journalists — Border crossings:

The challenge for professional journalists today is to understand how their role has changed. Their readers and their sources and their subjects now have access to an open microphone. And much of the time, it’s good stuff on that mike — amazing stories and smart people and valuable information. Ignoring all that isn’t just a missed opportunity; it’s bad journalism. Only a hack could believe that ignoring the “amateurs in pajamas” is a smart course.
Bloggers, meanwhile, lose out if they choose to stand off and lob spitballs at the media machine instead of engaging with it in creative ways. They have an unprecedented chance to insert new information and ideas into the clotted and previously inaccessible media bloodstream. Blogging for its own sake is its own reward, to be sure. But blogging to set records straight and change minds and influence the public sphere — that’s too valuable to pass on.

How blogs work.

Let’s say you’re a Talking Points Memo fan. News breaks on Valerie Palme. Oh, I want to hear what Josh Marshall has to say about that. It’s the most basic act in public affairs blogging. A few clicks and there’s Talking Points Memo lighting up the screen, the familar picture of Josh, thinking. Ah, he has a post up about the latest news. This is gonna be good…

And at that point we’re off, reader and writer have connected. The blog is working. A rhythm is established through reaction. With big news, more people react and come hunting for views. The big news on my beat has been Dan Rather. It dawned on Thursday Sep. 9, that there might be a real problem with the memos. Friday night I reacted:

Weekend Notes with Forgery Swrling in the Air. (Sep. 11)

Followed by some Big Think, lending context to the Rather events:

Stark Message for the Legacy Media. (Sep. 14)

The story grew. So did the blog’s explanations:

Rather’s Satisfaction: Mystifying Troubles at CBS. (Sep. 18)

And then… On Sep. 20th news strikes. CBS admits its story has come apart. The cycle starts over with same day reaction:

Did the President of CBS News Have Anyone in Charge of Reading the Internet and Sending Alerts?

Posted by Jay Rosen at September 24, 2004 12:47 PM Print

It had to fight a war for legitimacy and reputation, and that's a political struggle, but since the news division was the one involved in the fight, CBS had to also claim that it had no politics at all.

It seems to me that CBS puts their legitimacy and reputation on the table as ante when deciding to air this story, and that they have done so in the past (more on that later). In other words, they were looking to play the trump card in a political game but got caught either cheating, or forgetting what suit was trump. I think it is important to recognize:

CBS was engaged in a political struggle with this White House before they aired this program,
the political ramifications of this story were part of their decision (which you state later in the essay: "In other words, the two men knew they were about to make a political decision.")
they lost this hand and were thrust into what should have been a predicted (and not entirely unfamiliar) political struggle to defend thier seat at the table, and
they are low on credibility chips.

What makes this especially damaging for CBS is that this is not simply a political battle between a news organization with a consistent record of being adversarial with whomever is the current White House administration. Dan Rather is arguably the least trusted of the broadcast news anchors, CBS News the least watched and perceived as the most biased. So the claim that "it had no politics at all" is also low on credibility.

Thornburgh is not there to balance Boccardi, who is being sold as neutral, but to balance the perception of CBS' political bias. It's a tacit recognition, if not an admission, that their critics and the public (according to polls) hold the "liberal bias" opinion. Thornburgh is there to balance that opinion, buttressed by the Barnes/Burkett/Cleland/Mapes/Lockhart connections.

Which brings me to the inside baseball, the office politics, that I had not thought about until reading your essay: If someone at CBS wanted to have Rather publicly destroy himself, then for that purpose the network made the correct moves. But why would someone want to do that? That's an interesting contrast to your insight into Rather's thinking (Rather's Satisfaction). It's an implication that not only did Rather get "played" by Mapes into thinking the story was "nailed down", but was then perhaps "played" into destroying himself and, in the process, the credibility of CBS News - spreading the conceit like a virus to other shows as you say.

There seems to be a Master Narrative, a framing, or perhaps even a conventional wisdom developing from the meme that this is an isolated event. That CBS hasn't been through other scandals and the same people making the decisions to air this story and then defiantly and arrogantly stand by it haven't weathered criticism and scandal in the past. Did they handle it differently then? Were these decisions and reactions unique for CBS and these personalities, or in character?

And this is also about a raw attempt to discredit CBS, and Dan Rather-- a long-held dream among some on the Right.

Wow. I really wish you had expanded on this point. A raw attempt to discredit CBS - BY WHOM? By the person that created the fraudulent memos and forged the signatures? By someone at CBS in charge of framing the story or deciding to air it?

In other words, CBS is discredited. They discredited themselves when they aired a political hit-piece despite all the questions from experts, by misleading Hodges and others, and despite the doubts expressed by Killian's family and others in interviews. They discredited themselves when their producer unethically asked the Kerry campaign to call Burkett and Lockhart did CBS the favor!! They further discredited themselves by acting like politicians caught in a scandal.

"The Right" could sit back and watch their "long-held dream" come true - or help it along by keeping the pressure on CBS to finally admit the truth - and it would not change the fact that CBS is responsible for discrediting themselves.

Perhaps an even more interesting question is why The Left has risen up to defend CBS and Dan Rather? To attack and discredit the critics of this story? To attempt to distract, to shift blame, to diminish its relevance?

Isn't that part of the political struggle? If CBS has no politics, why has The Left picked up its banner and rallied behind it?

Radio station drops CBS News over Guard flap

Posted by: Tim at September 24, 2004 4:36 PM | Permalink

In my opinion, it is far more important to examine what went wrong *before* the broadcast than how the network handled it *afterwards.* The one-sided nature of that story, and the seemingly willful insistence on ignoring any contrary point of view, calls into question all of the stories produced by Rather and the rest of his crew.

Posted by: Patterico at September 24, 2004 1:43 PM | Permalink

I find myself in agreement with Patterico, from a different perspective.

To me, there's no question to be explained in the CBS reaction. It's a classic case of being in denial. Moreover, their thinking there isn't obscure or hard to comprehend.

They can't come out and say it, but they were obviously of the mindset "This is a bunch of wingnuts and Republican PR flacks throwing mud at us and hoping something will stick"

Once they formed the belief in the truth of the story, they acted with complete consistency according to the impertatives that belief. So what would be the point of going through restating that at length?

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at September 24, 2004 3:12 PM | Permalink

This is a complete aste of time, energy and resources. Thousands of people have been mercilessly slaughtered in a war based on lies. CBS' ineptitude and Dan Rather's ego are of no interest to anyone seriously interested in journalism or truth.

Posted by: David Ehrenstein at September 24, 2004 4:28 PM | Permalink

Isn't this Sinclair radio operation, which is dumping CBS News allegedly because of listener outrage, the same group that wouldn't put on Ted Koppell the night he was reading the war dead?

Posted by: Quebecoise at September 24, 2004 4:47 PM | Permalink

I have to chime in on what Mr. Ehrenstein said.

None of us should pretend that this episode is in any way unique. Sure, the way it blew up was pretty special, especially if you're a Repblican wingnut; but that doesn't change the fact this kind of flubbing-the-facts is perfectly normal in mainstream corporate journalism today.

Starting a couple years ago, the press, including the unfortunate Mr. Rather, did, with great enthusiasm, take a leading role in selling the nation a war we all know (and many of us knew) was based on lies, obfuscation and perfidy. Thus far, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead along with the nearly 1,100 American soldiers.

In that case, the result was mass murder. So, where is the great investigation paneled with faux-macho Republican activists pretending to give a hoot about the truth?

Does anyone here really doubt that a truly professional press corps, doing it's job the way we learned in school, would have prevented this horrible crime? If the truth mattered in the least, even to Mr. Rather, this war probably would not have happened.

In this latest case, the result is a comic soap opera Alfred Jarry would greatly admire. Pa Ubu lives!

Who was damaged by all this? Dan Rather. If anyone should be outraged, it would be him. Did anyone die as a result of this "terrible crime?"

CBS will, as most monolithic corporations do, weather this little dust-up, but Rather may not.

The Republicans can lather themselves up in faux outrage as much as they like. It changes nothing.

This whole episode is one of the saddest commentaries on our national press corpse I've ever witnessed. Not because someone goofed, got taken to the cleaners and made a huge series of mistakes. It's happened before and it'll happen again.

Nay, it's all this pretense that somehow the truth matters when it clearly doesn't. Not to CBS, or any other major corporate outlet. Not anymore, and not in many years now.

So while people are dying in a war that was foisted upon us by a lying, meretricious press, we act like this latest scandal is somehow more significant than all those corpses rotting in a roiling desert.

In a sense, I tend to see all this ridiculous navel gazing as proof of just how corrupt the business is. So, I think, do a lot of other people. This is all about managing perceptions and damage control.

Mr. Rosen, for as much as I admire your work, there seems to be a vast ocean seperating journalism as an academic discipline and "journalism" as a corporate business model. It rather seems to me that in order to WORK in journalism today, the first thing that has to go is all that "book learnin'" about truth and integrity. At least that is the case in a good many outlets that wield real power. I would love to be wrong on this point, by the way.

TV news audiences have been shrinking for years, save a smartly produced war or hurricane on occasion, and hardly anyone seems to think that just maybe it's because Americans are sufficiently media savvy to know they are being BS'd.

In the end, all this is just about distracting people from real life and death issues. It's a clown show that won't save anyone's life or prevent us being spoonfed the next strategic disaster in the Middle East as "liberation."

Thanks for indulging my Howard Beale moment....

Posted by: Rick at September 24, 2004 7:17 PM | Permalink

Patterico: I think it is equally--not "more," but equally--important to examine what went on before the story aired. But that was included in the charge to the Committee and everyone is expecting that kind of inquiry.

Seth: Assume a sufficient level of cynicism in or about others, and any series of events, no matter how fantastic, can be shrugged off with a "what did you expect?"

Being "in denial" may describe the CBS crew, but it doesn't explain anything. Why were they in such denial?

"This is a bunch of wingnuts and Republican hacks, we can afford to ignore it" may account for the first 24 hours. But we have 12 days to account for. Within 24 hours the people that CBS people do care about, and pay attention to--other journalists from national news organizations--were having their doubts.

I refer you again to Mike Dobbs of the Washington Post: "I had serious suspicions about the authenticity of the documents on the morning after they were aired. I find it difficult to believe that people in CBS did not develop similar doubts soon afterward."

I agree with Dobbs. It stretches credulity to believe that there weren't people inside CBS, including people in executive positions, who saw what Dobbs saw. You must realize: journalists think alike. As soon as the first expert relied upon by CBS came out and said, "well, I can't testify to that, no..." the story was in crisis-- and anyone with journalism experience who was paying attention knew that.

Some were in denial, yes, and emotionally committed to the story. But why were they in charge of CBS's response to the story? Some saw what was happening. Why were they silent or disempowered?

I have been interviewed by a lot of reporters the last two weeks-- at least 20 times. Each time I try to gauge their level of shock, and they have a hard time believing what happened. In itself that proves nothing. But I think it's an indication that there's something off here.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 24, 2004 11:26 PM | Permalink

Tim: I consider it highly possible that the target of the fraud was CBS, and the purpose was to discredit CBS News. Likely? I wouldn't say that. Just very possible. Nor is there anything resembling proof.

The most tantalizing piece of evidence, to me, is Buckhead's membership in the Federalist Society. Doesn't prove anything, could be just a coincidence. Any competent investigative reporter would be interested in that little detail, however.

I grant that it's amusing to hear people on the Left describe the memos as Rove's work for sure. But it would be naive to say we know the memos were forged to help Kerry.

This leads to an interesting question in this whole mess. Was this a successful plot? Or unsuccessful? Remember all those bloggers who were saying in the first few days, "the memos are not only fakes, but obvious fakes." Let's say they were right. Where does that lead?

But the main reason I wrote... And this is also about a raw attempt to discredit CBS, and Dan Rather-- a long-held dream among some on the Right was simply to note that those who have long had it in for Rather and CBS and the liberal media sense a chance to go for the kill--to fully discredit their targets--and they are trying to apply political pressure to make that happen.

The fact that CBS discredited itself with its original report and response does not change any of that. I say some on the Right are excited by the "gift horse" they have been given. They intend to milk this for every discrediting point that can be won. That's how politics is played. You can't seriously object to me mentioning it, when I have written 10,000 words in five posts about how CBS discredited itself.

I agree with you that the Left does not know what it's doing, saying, conceding when it decides to "support" CBS. It is simply reacting--unthinkingly--to what I said above. "Our opponents are attacking CBS; if we rally to CBS's defense then we are fighting our enemies and that's what we want, right?"

For people who are unable to think politically, such reactions are routine.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 24, 2004 11:51 PM | Permalink

Using your live link, I read Dorothy Rabinowitz's analysis of the Danpoo. Altho she had much of interest for us to read, she refused to face and ask the question of the ideologue's motive, and therefore to inquire after just what the punishment should be. She lost her nerve, and is another casualty of the valuelessness of the Big Press to whom all this a game. If she can't get to the point, she shouldn't be writing. Rather must be punished because of all the people he hurt, in order to follow thru on educating him as to his unacceptable motivation. To the extent that he and his producer Mapes shared a common motivation, we are dealing with a conspiracy against the electoral process of the United States, which means the punishment should rise exponentially. But also, he violated a lot of individuals–like the Killian family–on a very personal basis; should they choose, the courts should grant huge awards both as to the analogous relation to a rape, and to drawing them into a public demaining of public figures symbolic of their most civic values. Then there are the members of the public at large who were victims of the Rather/Mapes/CBS travesty of "informing the people" by means of a calculated program of disinformation. As to those between Rather and the corporate entities, CBS/Viacom, additional heads should fall, right up the ladder, to the ground. CBS/Viacom should be fined $1 billion dollars for the infamy it let loose on the nation. The blah-blah profession has to be taught its responsiblities in a democracy, and the courts and corporations should rise to the occasion. We need an inner reformation of American journalism.

Yours, Owlbird

Posted by: Owlbird at September 25, 2004 12:19 AM | Permalink

Please don't say "the Right." The right is a European term that implies fascism, anti-democracy-ism, one-party-state-ism, anti-free market-ism. Republicans are conservatives: They oppose (in theory) the growth of government. The "right" likes a strong domineering government; conservatives want back the days of a *weak* Federal government: one with a small bureaucracy and low taxes. The precise opposite of "the right."

Now on to my comments...

Can I just say out loud what Jay is saying between the lines? Perhaps Jay's way of saying it is more subtle and more pregnant with meaning but obviously, in Thornburgh and Boccardi you have a Republican and a MSM news guy, which is to say that you have a conservative (not a member of "the right"!) and a liberal. I think instinctively everyone knows that a Republican-MSM guy ticket is a balanced one. PS. I give some odds Thornburgh *volunteered.*

Next, let me say this: If you want to understand what is going on with CBS just read Poynter's Romenesko. He represents the establishment liberal mindset of the news biz almost too perfectly. First he ignored the forgery story, then he posted MSM articles somewhat hostile to it and moved into MSM articles sympathetic to Dan, basically "a good guy who made a mistake in trying to get the story." Mixed in there, you have just enough of the facts to know what happened. Missing: any links to any blogs whatsoever (except, once, to pressthink). Any sense of when big media was getting it wrong (misreporting facts), any sense of critique, any sense of hard analysis. It was ignore, duck and cover as much as a media column can be that also admits something is happening.

Anyway, read it and in the collections of articles that he picked and in the way he chose to play them: you more or less have a transcript of the MSM brain and why this happened the way it did.

Posted by: Lee Kane at September 25, 2004 1:18 AM | Permalink

Jay: This leads to an interesting question in this whole mess. Was this a successful plot? Or unsuccessful? Remember all those bloggers who were saying in the first few days, "the memos are not only fakes, but obvious fakes." Let's say they were right. Where does that lead?

France? Italy's SISMI? OK, kidding.

Right now it leads to Burkett. Either Burkett is the originator of the documents or the conduit for the documents. Either Burkett chose the media outlet - or in your terminology, the target - or was instructed to give the documents to CBS (specifically Mapes?). Does that fit the storyline as we know it so far? Applying Occam's Razor, does it seem more likely that this was an amateurish attempt to hurt Bush?

You can't seriously object to me mentioning it, when I have written 10,000 words in five posts about how CBS discredited itself.

I don't object. In all the rhetoric and emotion from both sides, I found the names being used to refer to this scandal interesting. Sure, there were the -gate terms ... Rathergate, Memogate ... but the most interesting one to me was Danron. Who would argue that Enron didn't deserve every discrediting point their critics won? Are Danron and Enron on the same scale? No. Was there journalistic malfeasance here? Yes. Was there criminal conduct in creating fraudulent government documents and forging Killian's signature? Don't know.

So how many discrediting points have Dan Rather and CBS News earned? Are there still earned discrediting points that have not been won? Is it the function of Republicans/conservatives to make sure all of them are "won" and Democrats/liberals to make sure no unearned discrediting points are collected?

Is there a need for a thoughtful, respected, media critic to interrupt that kind of automatic thinking?

After 12 days, we finally have an admission by CBS that the documents' authenticity can not be proved. We have an apology from Rather for not being as good as he should have been on this story. We have a two person panel appointed by CBS with unclear instructions and little understanding of how they will conduct themselves. We have a possible lawsuit against CBS by Burkett. I suppose there could be other lawsuits brought in the near future.

There are still many questions about the origin and provenance of the documents. There are still many questions about Burkett's role. There are still many questions about the web of connections. About motivations.

I strongly believe that the best way for CBS to stop giving away discrediting points is to become the most aggressive in uncovering and exposing the answers.

But CBS, and their defenders, seem less interested in burning everyone involved in this "raw attempt to discredit CBS" (I remain skeptical that CBS was the target) and more interested in a PR attempt to build sympathy (those mean right-wingnuts have always had it in for us) and play down the importance of the story (certainly opposite from their position when they rushed the story to broadcast).

By doing so, they are earning more discrediting points that need to be won until CBS News is no more. And that has always been within CBS' control.

Posted by: Tim at September 25, 2004 2:07 AM | Permalink

Well I for one am still hoping that Dan Rather can break this story wide open.

I am troubled by the suggestion that the aftermath of Danron is not suitable for investigation because I strongly suspect that Mapes will be used as a scapegoat. The things that CBS News said and did after the forgeries were exposed are in themselves damning.

This was not a case of CBS just being stubborn or in denial--CBS knowingly misrepresented the credibility of the documents, the experts and sources it used, and the nature of the criticism directed at it after the fact. That's not denial of reality because you're convinced you are right, that's the pattern of denial of a guilty party. Many people, when found out doing something they shouldn't have, fall into this pattern of promiscuous lying. It suggests Enron-like corruption in the upper echelons of CBS News.

Thornburgh's selection is also interesting in that he's had his own clash with CBS News. He's certainly a very interesting choice, but to what end we don't know yet.

As for whether this was all a plot to discredit CBS News, that story sounds a little too good. It presupposes that CBS News was incapable of controlling how it handled the documents once copies came into their possession. What if CBS News had not made copies available? What if they referred to them but only showed a brief, shadowed image during the report? What if they had listened to their own experts?

If you carefully review Burkett's own statements, he's the most likely source of the documents. He claims he burned the "original" copies given to him. He tells a very weird story about how they came into his possession. He claims he was called by some "Lucy" but can't produce a shred of evidence that any such person ever contacted him (not even phone records). He initially named someone else, the aptly named George Conn, as the source. Again, note the pattern of highly dubious statements from someone who is acting like a very guilty party (and who is now trying to use health problems to garner sympathy).

Posted by: Brian at September 25, 2004 3:42 AM | Permalink

"And this is also about a raw attempt to discredit CBS, and Dan Rather-- a long-held dream among some on the Right."

That is a clear statement of fact on your part, Mr. Rosen. So your protest in follow up comments that you are not saying it is even likely, merely "very possible" is simply, if rudely put, a lie. Yes, you have a right to blame it all on conspirators, even the vast right wing variety (as you infer). In fact, you needn't preface your determination of true responsibility with even one word, let alone 10,000, in a rather well stated recitation of CBS' and Dan Rather's errors and sins. Free speech still prevails, off campus. Ultimately, you place the blame squarely on the victim(s) despite the obvious motivations and political action history of Burkett, the man who delivered the documents to CBS. At the same time, you point with suspicion to the shocking fact that the Free Republic poster was a Republican activist as a starting point for your colleagues to blame the Right. Your curiosities seem to depend, not on evidence (circumstantial or not), but on where you wish or fear inquisitiveness to lead.

Whatever CBS does will not solve the credibility problems of the MSM while even now leaders in journalism are trying to shift the blame from their methods and prejudices to outside conspiracies.

Posted by: mikem at September 25, 2004 5:55 AM | Permalink

Jay, there's of course a logical problem with "denial", but it's an explanation. I've been reading "wingnut" blogs over the past two weeks, and it seems all the time they have some lie, some mud, some smear to throw. It's a numbing chorus: "wolf. Wolf. Wolf! WOLF!! *W*O*L*F*!!! **WW**OO**LL**FF**!!!! ..."

I'm not at all perplexed at how the aftermath developed. If some of these people said the sun rises in the east, I'd wonder if the Earth had flipped over.

Look at the remark on Sep. 15, "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story.". This is exactly the sort of personal statement that stems from deep, deep, denial. All the contrary evidence is ignored.

Sure, some people at CBS would have developed doubts. They had doubts at the start. But who wants to tell the Emperor he has no clothes?

In fact, I'd say that's the way to think about this. In the "Emperor's New Clothes", the interesting process is how the Emperor is led to walk around naked. Once he does that, it's not hard to believe that nobody want to tell him to his face that he's naked, and even so, he doesn't want to listen ("If the clothes are not what we were led to believe ...").

Here's Dan Rather "bigfoot", vouching for the story. Why would anybody below him stick their neck out? The rest was the classic unfolding of error:

1) "We stand by our story" (and it's all smoke from our enemies)
2) He said/She said, dueling experts, moral equivalence, nobody knows
3) Let's move on to important issues
4) Oops ...

But critically, going through it won't tell us anything we need to know (except perhaps as an exercise in how power can cloud people's minds as to truth).

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at September 25, 2004 8:55 AM | Permalink

Mark me down as a bookmark, your worship. A trove of insight and wit worthy of a king's treasure.

Remember the Vietnam thing? "We had to burn the village to save it"? At CBS it's: "We had to burn the truth (and reveal our impeachable source, who duped us with lies) to save the truth."

Posted by: dogberry at September 25, 2004 10:44 AM | Permalink

mikem: There's been a campaign to discredit Rather and CBS for a long time. Now it's kicked into overtime because its chance has come: thus, "let's get Bob Scheiffer dumped from the debates, even though he had nothing to do with it."

There is such a campaign. That is what I said. That is what I meant. It happens to be true. If you don't care for me mentioning it, tough. What I called "unlikely, but quite possible" is my own speculation that the memos were forged to hurt CBS.

Now what was it I lied about, mike? You lost me on that one.

Owl: I admire your ability to know Rather's motivations with the same certainty that we know when the sun will set tonight. That's one skill I haven't developed yet, and I doubt I ever will.

Lee: I agree that Romenesko has a mainstream news mind-- that's his audience. He was slow on this story, and seemed reluctant to grant it much importance at first. However, it is not true that when he got into the swing he ignored the most critical accounts emerging from the national press. He did ignore almost all the bloggers, though. You're right about that.

Tim: As is usual, I have had my go 'rounds with the Left and the Right on this one. I may write something on the Left and the Rather memos, since there is a lot of confusion in the responses of liberals and progressives. Just curious if you agree that the campaign to dump Schieffer is fair and just.

Brian: I agree with pretty much everything you wrote.

Seth: The "bigfoot" factor is a big one. But that is why my post focused on Heyward and Moonves. They are bigfoot's boss. They have responsibility. If the question is, "but who's gonna tell Dan Rather that he's in denial...?" the answer is: they are!

I agree that Rather's "I'd like to break that story" is deeply revealing of how out-of-it he was. It's already famous, that line, and for good reason.

Finally, Seth, one thing we're going to learn is just how prejudiced against and ignorant of the Internet people at CBS were. Way, way beyond the fact that they weren't reading Powerline. I'm talking about people who run media companies or news divisions and don't know what Romenesko is, haven't looked at their own site (CBS News.com) in months, maybe don't even understand the difference between the Net and the Web, who are living and thinking in a circa-1998 world.

Seems to me that's worth knowing. But again, if you adopt enough cynicism, it's... "what did you expect?"

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2004 11:34 AM | Permalink

Jay: Just curious if you agree that the campaign to dump Schieffer is fair and just.

Nope, not fair or just. Very political. It seemed there were all kinds of motivations for it as well. Get other CBS headliners on the record about what Rather/CBS News was doing (other "big foots" - or is that feet? - at CBS were dragged into the debate)? Leverage CBS' participation in the debates to get them to back down? To drop a debate (2 instead of 3)? I admit that I'm really not sure what the real goals were of the folks bringing up Schieffer and the debates or if they think it was a success or not.

Some interesting structural bias clues, as well as political decision-making in the NYT article David links:

Ms. Edwards said that the report had been scheduled for June but that it was postponed because of additional news on the subject.

That may tie in to the work Josh Marshall was doing and is discussed in more detail here.

The Iraq segment had been ready for broadcast on Sept. 8, CBS said, but was bumped at the last minute for the segment on Mr. Bush's National Guard service. The Guard segment was considered a highly competitive report, one that other journalists were pursuing.

I find the political decision-making in three places:

Let's not worsen our situation by criticizing someone for falling for fake documents right away.
Let's not do it to the Bush administration before the election.
Note how the Niger doocuments are not a more important story, or more competitive story, at CBS.

Posted by: Tim at September 25, 2004 12:09 PM | Permalink

It is a very political decision, and, from the point of view of a free press, also very disturbing. "Would not be appropriate," says spokesman. Yes, but why?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2004 12:15 PM | Permalink

Jay: Not that Romenesko didn't link to the critical MSM stories but that he initially downplayed them (not giving them prominence) or putting links to stories very critical of CBS in "more link" sections and leading with stories that treated the story more as a "respectable institution said--weird bloggers said" story. Eventually, when the story became very very big, he moved it to the top and gave it a lot of attention--exactly how CBS itself treated the story. I am just saying Romenesko's treatment of the story probably shows how an MSM news person saw the story as it developed. And provides insight into why CBS acted the way it did.

On Nigeria docs: Perhaps CBS has taken a second look at the story and realizes that it also appears to be on the hyped and doubtful side. Bush never claimed that the US directly believed in the Nigeria connection. He claimed that Great Britain believed in the connection, and GB is standing by its story. I wonder if they didn't think, "We need to go back over this story and make sure it is 100% accurate and fair." And then decided it wasn't.

I really doubt that's what happened. But I don't wonder if it should.

Posted by: Lee Kane at September 25, 2004 12:28 PM | Permalink

As someone who reads and participates in the liberal blogosphere, I would contend that the reason Rather has received a modicum of "support" from the liberal bloggers (although much less than suggested by the people commenting here!), is because anyone who follows the Bush/AWOL story (like David Ehrenstein) KNOWS that there is much to the assertion that Bush WAS AWOL (or a deserter)! No information, absolutely none, that has come to light has suggested anything otherwise. Any reading of Marty Heldt or Paul Lukasiak's work is enough to convince any logical, intellectually honest person of this.

None of this translates into defending what is considered a journalistic sin, but I'd like to see some consistency of journalistic sins by the likes of Jeff Gerth, Chris Vlasto, the spite girls against Gore (TSGAG)etc.

Posted by: Eric at September 25, 2004 12:33 PM | Permalink

Jay says:

"It is a very political decision, and, from the point of view of a free press, also very disturbing. "Would not be appropriate," says spokesman. Yes, but why?"

An uncharitable reading of the CBS imbroglio is that a lot of people at the network hate Republicans and have given up "journalism" in favor of operating the news division of the network as a de facto organ of the Kerry campaign. One does not have to be unusually paranoid to entertain some form of this hypothesis (though I, for one, never assume malice where simple incompetence suffices as an explanation).

If there appears to be a good chance this hypothesis is true, why would anyone expect the Bush campaign to tolerate having a CBS apparatchik "moderate" a presidential debate? And if the hypothesis is true, who is the greater threat to a free press -- the Bush campaign or CBS itself?

Posted by: Harry at September 25, 2004 12:46 PM | Permalink

"anyone who follows the Bush/AWOL story (like David Ehrenstein) KNOWS that there is much to the assertion that Bush WAS AWOL (or a deserter)!"

Actually, it is pretty clear that most of these people don't even "know" what the legal definititions of AWOL or deserter are.

Bush may very well have gotten favorable treatment at times because of his father. The sons of well known politicians frequently receive favorable treatment, even if no member of the politician's family actually asks for it.

Bush probably did slack off towards the end of his National Guard service, though it is less clear that his treatment was all that unusual. Many people were allowed to leave the Guard early, and many guardmen were allowed several month long breaks to pursure other activities. Kerry himself was discharged from the Navy early so he could run for public office.

But Bush was clearly not "AWOL" or a "deserter" in any valid legalistic way, no matter how often some people wish otherwise. These repeated claims just reveal a profound ignorance about how the military works in those making the claim.

Posted by: JB at September 25, 2004 12:51 PM | Permalink

Jay:
"The most tantalizing piece of evidence, to me, is Buckhead's membership in the Federalist Society. Doesn't prove anything, could be just a coincidence. Any competent investigative reporter would be interested in that little detail, however."

In the presence of POSITIVE evidence that it's a Democratic set-up (Burkett conversations with Cleland, Burkett conversations with Lockhart, Mapes conversations with Lockhart, Fortunate Son campaign timing) isn't it disingenuous (or paranoid) to look for evidence of Republican involvement? Who is the Left trying to fool now that Oz's curtain is down? It's too late to blame the Republicans. Any intelligent person who once used a typewriter could recognize the MS Word documents as forgeries. Buckhead was merely the first. Why don't we also investigate the party affiliation of debunkers 2 through 10,000?

Also, on the question of investigative emphasis, before or after, clearly they are two separate issues: the first should focus on the editorial process of the news program; the second should focus on the policy/agenda of the corporation.

Posted by: mk at September 25, 2004 1:16 PM | Permalink

To JB.

You may know more about the legalisms of AWOL vs desertion than I do, but you clearly don't understand the evidence behind the Bush AWOL story.

Perhaps if reading Heldt's or Lukasiak's site provides too much information to ignore, you'd rather consider the word of an Army general, Lechliter, who I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding his website.

Posted by: Eric at September 25, 2004 1:26 PM | Permalink

The trouble I have with this discussion is that it is impossible to intellectually, although maybe not journalistically, to separate the proported errors of CBS/60 Minutes/Dan Rather/Mapes, in the absence of the entire story itself. So what we get are journalists performing judge, jury and executioners (Dick Thornburgh? please), who don't know the questions surrounding Bush's service WAY beyond Barnes's favorable actions, and on the otherhand, we have people focusing on the Rather (memogate) portion of the story because they either don't know the AWOL story, or worse, they do know it and intentionally muddy the water in an age where that has never been easier.

Posted by: Eric at September 25, 2004 1:33 PM | Permalink

Jay: It is a very political decision, and, from the point of view of a free press, also very disturbing. "Would not be appropriate," says spokesman. Yes, but why?

I'm not sure if that refers to Schieffer or the CBS story postponement.

On Schieffer, I think we should not be naïve about his role in the debates, or disturbed about a "free press" in questions about dropping him. The debates are political theater, scripted in a way not too dissimilar from a nominating convention. In fact, one might think of the presidential debates as joint conventions.

So, rather than be troubled by efforts to remove Schieffer, maybe we should be troubled by the co-opting of "free press" celebrities as hosts, or emcees, of these tightly controlled political events? Besides, "free press" never meant free from commercial, political or social pressures - or an unaccountable press. It just meant no congressional legislation inteferring with it.

On the decision by CBS to bump their fake documents story for the National Guard story, and now postpone it until after the election, I put that in the "stop digging" category after realizing the depth of the hole you've put yourself in. I also find it informative that this is not a story that CBS considers competitive. In other words, no other "free press" organization is seeing what 60 Minutes saw and threatening to scoop them.

Based on what has been leaked about the story, I think it might be wise for CBS to re-examine it and make sure they "nail down" the details.

Eric: ... you'd rather consider the word of an Army general, Lechliter ...

This Lechliter? I encourage you, the DNC, and the Kerry campaign, to spend all your energies, time and money researching and educating the rest of us that "don't know the AWOL story" right up to the day of the election. Really. Focus. This is vitally important.

Posted by: Tim at September 25, 2004 1:54 PM | Permalink

In all this talk of the 'right' wishing to take CBS down I have to wonder if you're not missing something a bit bigger...like the American public in general?

I'm reminded of last fall's recall election in California when the LA Times smeared Schwarzenegger and 10,000 people dropped their subscriptions in disgust. In that case I believe the timing of the article was condemned more than the content and thus the blatant partisanship was condemned.

There are many citizens out there who may have preferences but aren't terribly political and who are simply disgusted by the unprofessional tabloid style smears passed off as journalism. I simply don't believe that every individual complaining to CBS and its affiliates are right-wing partisans or even Republicans. The Rather guard story was a one-sided hit piece, and to end up being based on forged documents was absolutely appalling.

You all can sit in your ivory towers and talk to each other about the meaning of it all, but I think the American public just wants people to be punished and the problem fixed.

Posted by: Syl at September 25, 2004 2:06 PM | Permalink

Well, it seems a lot of you think the republicans did this to get rather.
Then you really must be upset that he and his minions lied to you---unimpeachable source, complete confidence in the chain of custody of these document and on and on.
Reppublicans would have least made these documents somewhat believable. Only someone as far out in left field as rather and his staff would have ignored the experts, ignored the dissenting witnesses and went full speed ahead with the documents. (and to me this means that the DNC and Kerry campaign were involved)
As to importance--this was an attempt to influence an election using false documents and presenting false facts. If there isn't a media to trust---we are in for a bumpy ride.

Posted by: bethl at September 25, 2004 2:09 PM | Permalink

It's a moot point since the Bush campaign has decided not to challenge having Bob Schieffer moderate the debate, but would it REALLY be unfair if they had decided to issue such a challenge? Bob Schieffer as an individual has no responsibility for the report, or the subsequent stonewalling. But Bob Schieffer is not just an individual, he is also an employee and representative of CBS news. CBS executives decided not to investigate. CBS Nightly News was used to defend the 60 Minutes story. The entire organization stonewalled for days after it was obvious that their story had no credibility. CBS corporately did all this in support of a story that certainly LOOKS much more like a partisan hit piece than like any attempt at objective reporting. A moderator must be someone who can credibly be perceived as objective, I don't see how any employee of CBS fits that bill after the post "Danron" corporate stonewalling.

Even before this event CBS had about the same reputation for partisanship in the eyes of conservatives that Fox News has in the eyes of liberals. Would there be as much hand wringing about "fairness" in a parallel situation? Imagine if Tony Snow had been caught doing a hit piece on Kerry based on forged documents provided by an "unimpeachable" source that was revealed to be Stephen Gardner. Imagine if Fox News had stood by the story for 12 days as their own experts and sources disavowed the story. Would anyone cry out that it was "unfair" for Democrats to then demand that Brit Hume not moderate a debates? (Assuming he could get the gig in the first place)

Posted by: steve at September 25, 2004 2:09 PM | Permalink

Sorry, I must be a "republican wing-nut" who doesn't believe "the war" was sold on lies, etc. Having said that, and lived a few years in the real world, my experience is that in ANY profession successful people learn to separate the wheat from the chaff.Mapes: "I got them". Rather: "Who did they come from"? "Where did he/she get them"? "How do you know they're real"? The willful decision to not ask those questions by ANYONE in the process is all we need to know about CBS. The rest is BS.

Posted by: kent at September 25, 2004 2:13 PM | Permalink

Jesus Jay, if only the "flypaper" theory of combatting freepers could have worked as suggested by all the Bush administration neocons in Iraq!

Sorry Tim, won't visit those people (sic).

Read what Syl wrote, "In that case I believe the timing of the article was condemned more than the content and thus the blatant partisanship was condemned." Syl's comment illustrates the problem here, and that is that "truth is opinion". Syl, you can only conclude "blatant partisanship" IF the condemnation of the LAT was accurate and justified. I don't buy the premise, so the conclusion is null. The fact that the righwingers/conservatives/steroid/female abusing population of California voted for the man is irrelevant here.

To bethl, just what do you refer to when you state, "presenting false facts"? The content of the documents (which may be forged, not fake-big difference. If I steal your 10W-40 income tax form, crossout your signature and replace it with my name, I forged a signature, but bethl STILL really grossed X thousands of dollars). The secretary, Knox? corroborated the sentiment of Killian on 60 Minutes, no?

Posted by: Eric at September 25, 2004 2:23 PM | Permalink

Jay, after thinking about the issue, I suspect we're talking past each other a little. To me, as an outsider, the aftermath behavior is indeed how arrogant journos behave, a dog-bites-man story. Exactly, what did you expect. To you, as an insider, perhaps the story is that tribe members were given the same treatment that's meted out to everyone else. So to you, it's not dog-bites-man, which
is common, but dog-bites-*family*-*members* ("Gee, he's always been so friendly with us, whatever got into him?")

But when CBS and Dan Rather aired the defense which favorably compared the true raised small-font proportional-spaced superscript "th" of a fake memo, and the same-line monospaced pseudo-superscript "th" of a real memos, that was basically saying "Business suit, birthday suit, they're both suits, so those who have said I am naked are misguided - I am in fact wearing my birthday suit!"

Given the number of people involved in producing that defense, and that the CBS President probably reviewed it personally, that had to be scrutinized far more internally than any external articles.

In fact, I think "The Internet" would be a very convenient excuse for CBS executives to duck meaningful discussion. As in:

"Oh, that "Internut" thing ... I guess it just all went over my old grey head. Those "floggers", with their "arse feeds", there's only so much time in the day ..."

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein at September 25, 2004 2:36 PM | Permalink

Perhaps I'm wrong...but how, and who, has proven that the documents shown by 60 Minutes were "fake", not forged, but fake, as in someone typed it up in on a computer, say, the last 6 months?

I thought the documents were unable to be authenticated?

Posted by: Eric at September 25, 2004 2:45 PM | Permalink

Professor Rosen:

Ban me if you want, but this post is just fucking hilarious on so many counts:

1) You engage in rank speculation (with plausible deniability and weaselling in the comments of course) that it's all an evil Roveian plot.

2) You try to make hay out of the fact that a poster on a conservative message board is *gasp* a Republican! You know, I've done some digging and I've found that the calls for Trent Lott to step down were driven by a partisan Democrat named Joshua Micah Marshall, as well as e-mails by a man named Syndney Blumenthal who had ties to the the Clinton administration! Wheels within wheels man! Oh, and Robert Sam Anson beat you to this angle by at least a week. Don't you read NYO?

3) I love how, as part of your conspiracy theory, you make approximatley a zillion references to discrediting CBS being a long-term goal of the right. First of all: Quotes? Citations? I'm totally a VRWC member and I never got this memo. I mean, I ain't a big fan of the librul meeja, but my number one goal was always to kick Michael Moore in the nuts. I woulda thunk that having a press which followed minimal fucking standards of fucking journalism would've been sort of a bi-partisan cause. Far be it from me to make spurious accusations based on minimal data, which I know you would like totally never do, but I can't help but thinking your constant association of the wish to discredit CBS with "the right" is an attempt to, how you say, discredit the idea of discrediting CBS?

4) I love how you discredit the first 24-hours of blogging about the memos, in which multiple bloggers had contacted multiple non-partisan typography experts, as so much partisan froth, but somehow the story became legitimate when big meeja got into the game and started belatedly contacting many of the same experts and doing the same thing.

5) Could you please just shut the fuck up and step the fuck out of the way? I mean, I understand your goal of saving the hides of those in your social/political/cultural class and maintaining the same hierarchical structure that allows you to have your powerful, easy job with all its prestige, but you're really just postponing the inevtiable and making it worse for yourself in the long run. Read this piece by conservative Republican Hugh Hewitt. Despite the fact that he's a Republican, which apparently means we should discredit every word that comes out his mouth, I think a lot of the changes he's talking about will realistically happen, and your arrogance and defensiveness will only exacerbate the situation.

6) Fuck you

PS- I have an arrest warrant faxed to me from a source I find "unimpeachable" (meaning, of course, that he has a job in which impeachment by congress is not a possibility) showing Professor Rosen's arrest for giving hand jobs for crack money in the Port Authority men's room. I know that some have questioned the authenticity of these documents, but they're all Republican political operatives and it's most likely a plot by Karl Rove. Even if the documents are not authentic I still stand by the essential truth of my story. Now stop questioning me you partisan wingnuts!!

PPS- Okay, so they weren't real, but at worst this was a minor snafu and a distraction from the real issues. With respect, Professor Rosen, Answer the questions! We know that discrediting those who seek to discredit Professor Rosen has long been a goal of the left. Is that possibily where the documents came from?

Posted by: Eric Deamer at September 25, 2004 2:46 PM | Permalink

Eric: ---Syl's comment illustrates the problem here, and that is that "truth is opinion"---

Whereas in your case with that Lechliter fellow, opinion is truth.

---Syl, you can only conclude "blatant partisanship" IF the condemnation of the LAT was accurate and justified---

Wrong. There wasn't enough time for the public to determine accuracy before the election (the timing, you see). Therefore whether the assertions were true or not is irrelevant and the condemnation of partisanship was justified.

The public is sick and tired of crap like that.

Posted by: Syl at September 25, 2004 2:51 PM | Permalink

Eric D.: I think your comment speaks eloquently of the hatred and quality of mind you bring to the subject, so I will leave it up. This part especially: "Could you please just shut the fuck up and step the fuck out of the way?"

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 25, 2004 3:07 PM | Permalink

Anna: We ourselves are fairly rational, and associate with other rational people of "our kind"; we have considerably less first-hand exposure to our counterparts of the "other kind". Much of our opinion of them is formed by what our betters (the A-listers) say about them; what the A-listers are most likely to get worked up enough to remark upon, is the most egregious offenses of the opposition. Voila' - all our personal and vicarious experience supports the conclusion that the opposition is made up of extremists.

Jay: The most tantalizing piece of evidence, to me, is Buckhead's membership in the Federalist Society.*

Eric: Sorry Tim, won't visit those people (sic).

Liberalism, in descending or ascending order?

* I'm not sure I understand why, and may be misinterpreting this. But it seems odd that a free press guy would be tantalized by free associations. Seems rather odd for a leftist to practice their own form of McCarthyism.

Posted by: Tim at September 25, 2004 3:28 PM | Permalink

Perhaps Thornburgh was chosen because he was once sued by Karl Rove. Certainly CBS's kind of Republican: one with a possible grudge against Bush's chief political strategist.

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2004/01/karl_roves_laws_1.html

Posted by: person of choler at September 25, 2004 3:34 PM | Permalink

To even hint that this was a plot by some conservative group or other means the group in question must be absolutely certain of something. And absolutely correct.
That is, that Rather and company are such fools that they'd fall for it.
They'd commit all the various journalistic sins that freshmen starting out on the high school paper are warned about.
How on earth would this putative group of plotters get this idea?
What would make them think that CBS would abandon--presuming it ever had them--every journalistic standard and every procedure in pursuit of George Bush?
Experience, maybe? Or a vague hope?
Perhaps CBS's day-to-day behavior over the years made this group of plotters absolutely sure. And they were right, too.
Unfortunately, this is going to have to be CBS' defense.
"You know how dumb a cherrystone clam is? We're dumber. You know how we're supposed to know black from white and up from down? Never had a clue. You know how morons with axes to grind are winnowed out by first-level journalistic caution and research? Not us, boy. We fall for anything. You know how reporters spend years learning to look for red flags? We thought a red flag was what a matador uses. And we have no earthly idea why anybody pays us for the shit we pump out."
If they can't make this case solidly, they'll be left with the reality, which is that they deliberately and with malice aforethought set out to subvert a presidential election with documents they knew to be fraudulent.
There are no other explanations.
As a reinforcement, see the story they bumped for this one. The story about the forged Niger docs.
This was going to make it look as if Bush went to war on the basis of clumsy forgeries when, in fact, they had nothing to do with the decision, either in the administration or t