{"id":2264,"date":"2004-09-21T01:58:46","date_gmt":"2004-09-21T01:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulhuntre.com\/items\/date\/2004\/09\/21\/cbs-fake-but-accurate\/"},"modified":"2004-09-21T01:58:46","modified_gmt":"2004-09-21T01:58:46","slug":"cbs-fake-but-accurate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/2004\/09\/21\/cbs-fake-but-accurate\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS: Fake but accurate?!?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“What’s going on? Do these guys really think the Rather affair is that big a deal?” – quote in context<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let’s flash back a little, to the heady days of just last week when our man Dan got all huffy that us poor internet people would even dare question him<\/a>. This was before CBS tried to pass off “fake but accurate<\/a>” as the new journalistic standard we should all live by. Dan was adamant about the documents, and indignant about being questions.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dan reassured his friends…<\/p>\n

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“I think this is very, very serious,” said Bob Schieffer, CBS’s chief Washington correspondent. “When Dan tells me these documents are not forgeries, I believe him.<\/b> But somehow we’ve got to find a way to show people these documents are not forgeries.” – quote in context<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dan defended the story to the rest of us…<\/p>\n

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“The story is true. The story is true,” Rather said. “The questions raised in the story are serious and legitimate questions.”<\/i><\/p>\n

Rather denies there is any internal CBS News investigation under way — a statement backed by the network.<\/i><\/p>\n

Rather also said the possibility of issuing any kind of recant or apology was “not even discussed. Nor should it be.” – quote in context<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Then he attacked anyone who thought that something as trivial as CBS accepting and broadcasting obviously forged documents that nay 4 year old could have spotted…<\/p>\n

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“But he also delivered a message to “our journalistic competitors,” including The Washington Post and rival networks: “Instead of asking President Bush and his staff questions about what is true and not true about the president’s military service, they ask me questions: ‘How do you know this and that about the documents?’ – quote in context<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And more confused hand waiving…<\/p>\n

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“On Friday, Sept. 10, Mr. Rather said on the CBS Evening News<\/i> that he believed that some of the criticism came from people who were “partisan political operatives,” implying that right-wing elements have managed to turn the story into a referendum on the story itself\u2014and thus on Mr. Rather, a longtime target of conservative critics.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rather said that the focus on questions over the veracity of the memos was a smoke screen perpetrated by right-wing allies of the Bush administration.<\/i>” – quote in context<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Oh hell, let’s just go to a partial transcript<\/a> of big Dan on the CBS Evening News of 09\/10\/2004…<\/p>\n

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“Today, on the internet and elsewhere, some people — including many who are partisan political operatives — concentrated not on the key questions the overall story raised but on the documents that were part of the support of the story.” – quote in context<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But there is more… as Dan goes on… hey, is that a vast, right wing conspiracy<\/a><\/i> lurking out there?<\/p>\n

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“I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can\u2019t deny the fundamental truth of the story,” he said. “If you can\u2019t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it\u2019s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents.<\/i><\/p>\n

“This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth,” he said. – quote in context<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A lot of people at CBS decided to put their ass on the line and back the story. We’ll hear more about this little lady soon, when CBS decides to make her the scapeoat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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“Additionally, Mary Mapes, the producer of the report and a well-respected, veteran journalist whose credibility has never been questioned, has been following this story for more than five years. She has a vast and detailed knowledge of the issues surrounding President Bush\u2019s service in the Guard and of the individuals involved in the story. Before the report was broadcast, it was vetted and screened in accordance with CBS News standards by several veteran 60 MINUTES Wednesday senior producers and CBS News executives.” – quote in context<\/a> (copy here<\/a> in case CBS changes it or deletes )<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Apparently “vetted and screened” at CBS means to ignore your own experts<\/a> and accept documents from a single source that is known to have a strong anti-Bush, anti National Guard bias and rush them to the newsroom<\/a>. But that didn’t slow Dan down… he stood by his (fake) story and let us know exactly how it stands.<\/p>\n

The times have changed though – poor Mary should see the knife coming and bail out now…<\/p>\n

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“The network’s executives acknowledge that its team’s failure to get in contact with the supposed original source should have been a red flag. But they said they had remained confident because Ms. Mapes and Mr. Rather had such confidence in Mr. Burkett. They also believed their other reporting had affirmed the sentiments Colonel Killian supposedly expressed in the documents. The White House, moreover, did not initially raise any doubts about the memos.<\/i><\/p>\n

“We were completely confident from what we were hearing from Mary, and there was no reason not to trust her,” said Josh Howard, the executive producer of the “60 Minutes” Wednesday edition.” – quote in context<\/a> (you can get a login<\/a> without registering here)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But what was that about back there about an apology<\/a>? It wasn’t even being discussed? Sheesh then it must have hurt like hell<\/a> to have to issue one.<\/p>\n

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“Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a “60 Minutes Wednesday”<\/a> story about President Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News<\/a> 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.<\/i><\/p>\n

Now, 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. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, 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. <\/i><\/p>\n

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. <\/i><\/p>\n

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people’s trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.” – quote in context<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Poor, poor Dan. Oh wait, it must such to have your boss also have to eat crow cause you jumped the gun…<\/p>\n

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“Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report,” said the statement by CBS News President Andrew Heyward. “We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret.” – quote in context<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sucks to be biased and caught, eh Dan?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What’s going on? Do these guys really think the Rather affair is that big a deal?” – quote in context Let’s flash back a little, to the heady days of just last week when our man Dan got all huffy that us poor internet people would even dare question him. This was before CBS tried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}