CBS finally admits mistake...

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
CBS finally admits mistake...
11
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 2:14pm
Hopefully this will put the matter to rest-I'm looking forward to the debates, and to more discussion of today's issues and less discussion of military service records.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml

CBS: Bush Memo Story A 'Mistake'


(CBS/AP) CBS News said Monday it cannot prove the authenticity of documents used in a 60 Minutes story about President Bush's National Guard service and that airing the story was a "mistake" that CBS regretted.

CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, the reporter of the original story, apologized.

CBS News claimed a source had misled the network on the documents' origins. The network pledged "an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken."

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

The network did not say the memoranda — purportedly written by one of Mr. Bush's National Guard commanders — were forgeries. But the network did say it could not authenticate the documents and that it should not have reported them.

"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.

"Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting," Heyward continued. "We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust."

Additional reporting on the documents will air on Monday's CBS Evening News, including the interview of Burkett by Rather. CBS News pledged "an independent review of the process by which the report was prepared and broadcast to help determine what actions need to be taken."

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

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

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

The authenticity of the documents — four memoranda attributed to Guard commander Lt. Col. Jerry Killian — has been under fire since they were described in the Sept. 8 broadcast of 60 Minutes.

CBS had not previously revealed who provided the documents or how they were obtained.

Burkett has previously alleged that in 1997 he witnessed allies of then-Gov. Bush discussing the destruction of Guard files that might embarrass Mr. Bush, who was considering a run for the presidency. Bush aides have denied the charge.

In the statement, CBS said: "Burkett originally said he obtained the documents from another former Guardsman. Now he says he got them from a different source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS News has been unable to verify to this point."

Questions about the president's National Guard service have lingered for years. Some critics question how Mr. Bush got into the Guard when there were waiting lists of young men hoping to join it to escape the draft and possible service in Vietnam.

In the Sept. 8 60 Minutes report, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes — a Democrat — claimed that, at the behest of a friend of the Bush family, he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Guard.

Other questions concern why Mr. Bush missed a physical in 1972, and why there are scant records of any service by Mr. Bush during the latter part of 1972, a period during which he transferred to an Alabama guard unit so he could work on a campaign there.

The CBS documents suggested that Mr. Bush had disobeyed a direct order to attend the physical, and that there were other lapses in his performance. One memo also indicated that powerful allies of the Bush family were pressuring the guard to "sugar coat" any investigation of Lt. Bush's service.

Skeptics immediately seized on the typing in the memos, which included a superscripted "th" not found on all 1970s-era typewriters. As the controversy raged, CBS broadcast interviews with experts who said that some typewriters from that period could have produced the markings in question.

Other critics saw factual errors in the documents, stylistic differences with other writing by Killian and incorrect military lingo.

Some relatives of Col. Killian disputed that the memos were real. His former secretary said the sentiments regarding Mr. Bush's failures as an officer were genuine, but the documents were not.

Some document experts whom CBS consulted for the story told newspapers they had raised doubts before the broadcast and were ignored. CBS disputed their accounts, pointing to the main document expert the network consulted, Marcel Matley.

Matley insisted he had vouched for the authenticity of the signatures on the memos, but had not determined whether the documents themselves were genuine.

Last week, CBS News stood by its reporting while vowing to continue working the story. The network acknowledged there were questions about the documents and pledged to try to answer them.

Mr. Bush maintains that he did not get special treatment in getting into the Guard, and that he fulfilled all duties. He was honorably discharged.

On Saturday, a White House official said Mr. Bush has reviewed the disputed documents that purport to show he refused orders to take a physical examination in 1972, and did not recall having seen them previously.

In his first public comment on the documents controversy, the president told The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H., "There are a lot of questions about the documents, and they need to be answered."

The Bush campaign has alleged that their Democratic rivals were somehow involved in the story. John Kerry's campaign denies it. In an email revealed last week, Burkett said he had contacted the Kerry campaign but received no response.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and make public by next week any unreleased files about Mr. Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Associated Press.

The White House and Defense Department have on several occasions claimed that they had released all the documents only to make additional records available later on.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-21-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 2:33pm
That's it? You just accept an apology and it all goes away?

I too, would love to have this whole debate about Vietnam war service go away. But is it not important to you that a NETWORK NEWS source cited forged documents then defended them then dismissed them as a "mistake". And now they expect that we will forget about this?

If they had ANY integrity whatsoever they would disclose their source and SEEK THE TRUTH. If we do not hold our media responsible for false accusations against a sitting president in wartime and before an election, when do we?

CBS is wrong this time...I only wish that most Americans were smart enough to see what they are trying to do and why...The liberal bias in media is damaging to our safety as a nation. Where do we go for the truth?

Lack of responsibility and accountablility are the two most destructive forces in our culture today. We "let it go" just b/c we don't want to be bothered to correct it.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 2:53pm


No, when I said I hope this puts the matter to rest I meant in terms of the presidential campaigns and the debates over military service. Personally I think we know what there is to know on both sides, and I think it's time to move on. I do believe the matter of the forged documents should be investigated, and whoever is responsible prosecuted-I assume this could even involve some kind of election fraud charges.



It is important to me-I don't believe Rather knowingly put out false documents (though I don't believe he wanted to investigate too deeply into the idea that they might not be legit). But I think his "punishment" for his error will be complete loss of credibility and being disgraced as a sub-par journalist. The market forces will take care of him and of CBS, IMO. He will eventually have to resign, though I doubt he'll do it anytime in the near future. I would bet he'll try to hang around and let this die down for a bit so he doesn't have to end his career with this whole mess as everybody'd last impression. But I doubt that will work and he'll be gone before too long, I would guess.



IMO, we get our information from a variety of sources and we weigh the facts ourselves. I don't think intelligent people ought to take ANYTHING they read or hear as the gospel truth-but as far as things like forged documents and cover ups, as we see in this case the truth generally has a tendency to win out in the end. Perhaps that's a naive point of view on my part, but I do believe in most cases it's true.



No, that's not my view at all-my view is that these things tend to be self-correcting. But of course illegal activity must be uncovered and prosecuted.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-24-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 4:04pm
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This wasn't addressed to me but I want to add my 1 1/2 cents worth. I am DEM but I thought from the beginning that the forms were probably fake. I don't think it should be an issue for the presidency though. CBS should be held accountable, but this should not be a matter in this race, but it's going to be and is. I am tired of hearing about this crap from the past, it is important but should not be a final determining factor in who anyone votes for. There is alot of really important stuff going on right here right now. Whatever Bush and Kerry did 30 years ago is a part of their past and should be left there. They have both moved on and we need to also. Bush was a young kid who got favors for being who he is and made stupid mistakes, but now he's our president and has other problems we should be worried about. Kerry got out of the service and said things that angered alot of people, to speak out against something he believed was wrong and needed to be fixed. Neither may have a pretty past but it's time to pay atention to the present, the here and now, and stop complaining about their pasts. We have all made mistakes in life, but those mistakes form who we are and hopefully we learn from them. I'm sure every president in the past had something in their past that wasn't too nice, but it was in their past and they still got elected.

Venus

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-21-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 4:21pm
Fair enough. I am just a little unnerved by everyone excusing CBS and ignoring the blatant bias behind most news sources. I have noticed that the staunch supporters of this story have grown very quiet on the boards in the past few days. Maybe they are seeing it for what it is now.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-21-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 4:30pm
I agree completely with your comment.

Also, I believe that Kerry may have jumped through loopholes to get out of Vietnam and I believe that Bush may have used family influence to avoid the front line... I am not sure that I wouldn't have done the same back then under those circumstances. The past is certainly not important in the matters that should influence our decision this Nov.

What DOES matter about the past is Kerry's Senate voting record of 20+ years and Bush's recent history as the Commander in Chief for the past 4 years...

My concern is that the public will not demand further investigation into these "documents" b/c we are sick of hearing about them. What if (someone from) Kerry's campaign was responsible for making them up? Wouldn't that be important to know in determining integrity of a candidate? Who is responsible for this and what were thier motives?

That's what I need to know.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-24-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 5:02pm
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I don't think so, it would be important in showing the integrity of the responsible party, but not the candidate. Kerry and Bush can't have constant control over all that goes on within their campaign. I think whoever did this did it on their own.

As for Kerry's senate record I don't know all of it, what I have looked up doesn't look too different from any other Dem Senator. I have also been hearing alot about Kerry being a main party in investigating things like Iran Contra, Drug rings, etc. even when his own party members didn't want a part in these hot button issues. Maybe this is part of the reason he was absent from many Senate meetings. I've also seen alot of senate meetings withought alot of the senators there. As for the "flip floping" thing I don't totally agree, Senators have many reasons for decisions they make for bills and ammendments. It's not ussually near as cut and dry as being for something or against it. One statement in a bill or ammendment can set someone for or against it that they may have otherwise voted opisite. Plus sometimes there is more then one thing in legisltion at a time for the same issue. The Senator could then chose the piece most liked and vote against the other, so though they are similar bills, one gets a "for" the other gets an "against" making it look like a flip flop. I have heard Kerry speak about some of the earlier issues and it sounds like this is what the flip floping was about. I also heard him talk about some of the issues RNC claims he was against, he said alot of it was from one bill that had several of these issues in it which he voted against because he wanted the bill to be a bit different then it was written. Just doesn't sound that bad to me, sounds like typical Senate stuff.

Venus

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-16-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 9:38pm
Amen to your last post adaemi. I too am outraged by the arrogance they showed. They have to be held accountable. This incident WILL change how the media handles situations in the future....at least we can all hope.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-13-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 10:22pm
Personally, I think Rather is the most biased reporter on the planet. Didn't his daughter run for congress? And doesn't he do fund raisers for Texas Democrats?
Avatar for claddagh49
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 10:30pm
Hey check this website out! Some VERRRRRRRRRRRY interesting stories http://www.rawstory.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 11:44pm
I'll assume you're referring to the Bush document story, which as far as I can tell says only that there are two documents in Bush's record that appear as though they may have possibly been altered, and the story then goes on to completely speculate about what may have been changed about them. No evidence that they were intentionally altered, no source claiming that they were intentionally altered, hardly on a par with the obviously fabricated documents in CBS's story. Perhaps the reason no legitimate news outlets have picked up this story is that it is a NON-story. Or perhaps there is some other story you are suggesting is interesting? I didn't see anything on the site even resembling a news story, except for the one about the hurrican hitting Haiti...

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