CBS Cleans House In Wake of Erroneous Story

An independent review panel gave CBS News a scathing rebuke for its story last fall about President Bush's national guard service. The report noted that in a story that was neither fair nor accurate, and did a "disservice" to the American public, the CBS News staff had a "myopic zeal" to get the story first and gave a "rigid and blind defense" after it aired. The story's producer, Mary Mapes, was fired. Three other executives were asked to resign. The network, noting that he was scheduled for retirement from CBS Evening News in a couple of months, recommended no action be taken against Dan Rather.

Comments

PARENT MIS-MODDED -- MOD PARENT UP!

[SewersOfRivendell]

CBS news isn't alone or even fucking the worst offender -- Fox News and the New York Times have done far worse, for far longer. It's ridiculous to single out CBS News for one bad story. Sieg heil, GOP!

Bush + Media = X

[MechaGod]

Lets put the picture together:

1) A few days ago, head of CBS meets Bush at the White House to "patch up relations".

2) For "bad reporting" CBS is *now* having heads roll, despite the fact pro-Bush bad reporting (recent example: misinformation about Social Security) is overlooked, probably even now paid for with our tax money.

3) Bush repeatedly breaks law in distorting, lying or manufactuing propaganda as "news".

Someone please give me a reason to think that this is not just because this was the one company that did not play the role of loyal opposition just weakly enough for Bush's liking.

Mod parent up!

[commodoresloat]

The story is accurate. There was plenty of other evidence besides phony memos. Which makes me suspect Karl Rove as the source of the forged memos, since the forgeries effectively cut off legitimate discussion of this issue. Now conservatives can just laugh off the charges and blame them on the phony memos rather than actually respond to them.

Re:What about the source?

[commodoresloat]

I agree - this is the most interesting aspect of this story; that nobody seems to want to investigate who forged the documents. I have my suspicions and they're on the right, not the left, of the political spectrum. I have no evidence for that other than Rove's history of dirty tricks and the fact that this incident ONLY benefited the Bush conservatives. But that's circumstantial at best -- it could very well have been a liberal DUMBASS who thought it would be a good idea to forge documents. But I suspect Rove because it seems completely designed to end discussion of a potentitally damaging story -- this functionally ended the debate over Bush's military service. There is plenty of other evidence that the Bush family pulled strings and the most reasonable speculation is that Bush jumped ship in order to avoid being drug tested. But after the CBS screwup, no big media would touch the story with a ten foot pole (other than to discuss the CBS forged memos).

Re:"Liberal" media, my butt

[pudge]

How is this obvious?

From the numerous surveys done over the past few decades, all of which show that a majority of journalists vote Democrat. This isn't difficult.

Re:"Liberal" media, my butt

[Scudsucker]

You're an idiot.

And you're a partisan hack.

And as I have clearly shown, no, it does not.

Of course it does, or else you wouldn't have brought it up in the first place. Even if that's not what was in your mind at the time, its what the words you wrote meant.

I am doing no such thing: my attacking of the man is entirely separate from my argument.

Pfft. Have you done seperate posts for reasoned rebuttals and posts to flame? No? Then it's an ad hominem.