Right Wing Nut House

There’s no lack of opinions in the blogosphere about the Thornburgh-Boccardi report detailing CBS malfeasance in the Rathergate episode. Captain Ed is outraged about CBS President Les Moonves decision protect CBS anchor Dan Rather:

When seen in context, Rather’s performance during this scandal is shockingly dishonest and deliberately misleading. He seems to have no sense of loyalty to the truth or to his viewers; in fact, his actions appear quite contemptuous of the public. How could Moonves expect to retain any credibility for any story fronted by Rather in any capacity at CBS? Moonves may think that the storm has passed — but as long as Dan Rather continues to represent CBS, their news organization will have no credibility whatsoever.

The Capn’ also has a remarkable post about the failure of the report to admit that there was political bias involved in the rush to air the report. Quoting from a series of devastating emails, the Capn’ points the finger directly and unerringly at the political aspects of the “investigation:”

On page 61, we get the answer with this exchange of e-mail between Smith and Mapes. Smith outlines a “hypothetical” deal for Burkett (emphasis mine):

What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we needed to get an ASAP book deal to help get us the information? What kinds of turnaround payment schedules are possible, keeping in mind the book probably could not make it out until after the election . . . . What I am asking is in this best case hypothetical scenario, can we get a decent sized advance payment, and get it turned around quickly.”

Mapes’ reply? “[T]hat looks good, hypothetically speaking of course.”

After detailing several notable examples of political bias by Producer Mary Mapes and others connected with the story, the report concluded that there was no bias in the run-up to or airing of the hit piece.

I guess having a producer who concurs that airing “information that could change the momentum of the election” is an example of “objectivity.”

One thing the report glosses over and which, to me, constitutes the most shocking and egregious aspect of the entire sorry affair is the coordination between CBS news and the Kerry campaign. The report fails to answer some significant questions as well as neglecting to even ask some questions that need to be addressed. To wit:

1. Did the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee coordinate their attack on President Bush’s National Guard service with the CBS hit piece? Circumstantial evidence would validate that assumption. The Democrats scheduled an ad campaign entitled “Fortunate Son” to begin on September 10; two days after the TANG story aired on CBS. The ads had been in the works for weeks.

2. When did the Kerry campaign learn of the existence of the TANG memos? The American Spectator on September 9 published an article saying that an opposition researcher at the DNC knew of the existence of the memos as far back as the Democratic Convention in July. Markings on the forged documents themselves show they may have been manufactured as far back as February, 2004. As early as March, the source of the documents Bill Burkett was posting on Democratic forums that he had evidence of Bush’s preferential treatment. The evidence would point to specific knowledge of the documents and their content sometime between March and July, 2004.

3. Who forged the documents? Here’s my speculation back in September:

Whoever fabricated the documents would have had to pore over Bush’s TANG records and come up with the appropriate dates, personnel, situations, and perhaps most importantly, the tone and tenor of the memos that would match what’s known of Killian. (Remember, both granny Knox and General Strong said the memos “sounded” like Killian.)

The panel, which came to no conclusion about the documents’ authenticity, nevertheless offered a detailed and devastating analysis of their shortcomings. But the question hangs over this case like a side of rotten meat; who’s the forger? Was Bill Burkett clever enough and knowledgeable enough about TANG procedures to come up with this on his own?

We’ll probably never know. My personal guess is that more than one person was involved in the forgery and Burkett may have been a straw man to hide the forgers identity.

4. Why didn’t the report delve into the political bias of both Mapes and Rather as it related to the overall reporting of CBS news during the campaign? Polipundit has some similar thoughts:

On page 211, the Report briefly, and far too poorly, reconsiders the political aspect of CBS’ attacks on President Bush. By separating the September 8th episode from the rest of the campaign to attack George W. Bush, the Report unfairly attempts to paint the attack as an isolated incident. The Report far too casually accepts assertions by Mapes and Rather that they had no political agenda, and refuses to dig any deeper than their claims. The fact that Rather’s e-mails, for example, were not reviewed, and that Mapes’ claims to only limited contact to high-ranking Democrats were accepted at face value, even with the evidence of their complicity in an organized plan to influence the Presidential election, is baffling. The Report tried to dodge the connection between Burkett and CBS, for example, by lamely stating “he declined to talk to the Panel” (page 212). Even as the Report noted that “[m]any of the sources of information that were used for the September 8 Segment had an anti-Bush political agenda” (page 212), yet somehow managed to conclude that the people collecting and organizing those sources did not also have such an agenda.

In summary, I think the reason the report glosses over so many important questions was best summed up by Captain Ed:

The Thornburgh-Boccardi report on the CBS debacle avoided casting the Killian memo story as definitively caused by political bias in its conclusions. Some of their reluctance, I think, has resulted from a legalistic mindset that pushed the panel to only state what they felt could be proven in a lawsuit.

Not everyone agrees, but it’s pretty clear to me that the report in its conclusions, is a whitewash; not meant to get to the bottom of the affair but rather to protect the reputation of CBS News from being totally destroyed.

At the same time, there is an inordinate amount of self-congratulation on the part of bloggers who believe that the Rathergate affair has somehow been a watershed event and that mainstream media will never be the same. This may be true. What I believe is misplaced is a general feeling of triumphalism and a belief that bloggers will now replace major news organs as purveyors of news.

This is nuts. Bloggers are eloquent in writing opinions about the news. Blogs are at their best when they uncover factual errors or bias in media reports. But bloggers as journalists? Generally speaking (there are many bloggers who are now or who have been journalists in the past) this won’t happen.

Back in December, I did a post on the illusion of Rathergate. I quoted extensively from an article in “The American Digest” by Gerard Vanderleun regarding the false lessons learned by bloggers:

“In a reactive medium such as blogging, one brings one’s opinions and expertise (limited, expansive or non-existent) to any question that engages one’s interest. At times, the confluence of these factors — most famously in the CBS False Documents scandal — creates a situation that causes what is sometimes referred to as “blowback” in the analog world. But these cases are still few and far between since there are not that many situations where the elements (documents, pdf files, computer and typewriter and word processing knowledge) combine to form a perfect storm of blogging blowback.”

The “Perfect Storm” Vanderleun refers to may happen once in a great while. My own belief is that blogs have much more utility in pushing stories into the mainstream media that are otherwise ignored. Stories like the “Oil for food” scandal or, more recently, the excellent work done by bloggers in uncovering and publicizing fraud in the Washington State Governors race. These are important stories that, because of bias or laziness, the mainstream media fails to cover.

But until news organs like CBS News put there own house in order, bloggers will continue to “bite at their ankles” by revealing outright bias and sloppiness in their work.