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January 10, 2005

110 Days Later - CBS Issues The Report

Published this over at the backup site lastnight while Hosting Matters was undergoing another Denial of Service attack.

On to CBS. As widely expected, producer Mary Mapes is history. So is Senior Vice President Betsy West, Executive Producer Josh Howard and Senior Broadcast producer Mary Murphy (Howard's deputy).

“We deeply regret the disservice this flawed 60 Minutes Wednesday report did to the American public, which has a right to count on CBS News for fairness and accuracy,” said CBS President Leslie Moonves.

No they don't. At all. They deeply regret getting caught by the blogosphere airing a very tired old story using forged documents, and then having to conduct this investigation.

Oh, and this tidbit screams out:

The panel said a "myopic zeal" to be the first news organization to broadcast a groundbreaking story about Mr. Bush’s National Guard service was a key factor in explaining why CBS News had produced a story that was neither fair nor accurate and did not meet the organization’s internal standards.

Right, "myopic zeal" was it, not an agenda against George W. Bush.

It is clear from the story on CBS's website this morning that CBS has decided to evade the primary responsibility for airing forged documents:

A key factor in the decision to broadcast the piece was a telephone conversation between Mapes and Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, Killian’s commanding officer during the period in question. Mapes told the panel Hodges confirmed the content of the four documents after she read them to him over the phone.

Hodges, however, denied doing so. He also told the panel he had given Mapes information that should have raised warning flags about the documents, including his belief that Killian had never ordered anyone, including Mr. Bush, to take a physical.

Hodges said that when he finally saw the documents after the Sept. 8 broadcast, he concluded they were bogus and told Rather and Mapes of his opinion on Sept. 10.

“This alleged confirmation by Major General Hodges started to march 60 Minutes Wednesday into dangerous and ultimately unsustainable territory: the notion that since the content of the documents was felt to be true, demonstrating the authenticity of the documents became less important.”

It was Hodges fault! Ah, now we understand completely. Not. CBS steered itself into dangerous territory when first contemplating the story. Shifting the blame to Hodges isn't going to cut it.

From the report itself, CBS also attempts to shift blame to the White House:

The morning of Wednesday, September 8, the Killian documents were delivered to White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett in anticipation of an interview to get a reaction from the White House. CBS News correspondent John Roberts interviewed Bartlett at around 11 a.m. at the White House. Bartlett did not dispute the authenticity of the documents at that time but denied in the interview that the documents showed that President Bush did anything improper during his service in the TexANG. The Panel was informed by West, Howard, Mapes, Kartiganer and two CBS lawyers involved in the vetting, Jonathan Sternberg and Richard Altabef, that Bartlett’s failure to challenge the authenticity of the documents hours before the Segment was to air provided further comfort that the documents were authentic.

So the fact that Dan Bartlett, who is no document expert, did not dispute the authenticity of the documents gave CBS further comfort that they were authentic? The logic escapes me. Not a good opening to CBS's report.

As I predicted, the panel investigating found it was "not able to reach a definitive conclusion as to the authenticity of the Killian documents." The documents were forgeries. Nothing more and nothing less. This has been demonstrated over and over again. It is not in dispute, except by those who have a vested interest in maintaining their denial.

And then this:

Given that the Panel does not believe that political motivations drove the September 8 Segment, questions likely will be raised as to why these massive breakdowns occurred on this story at an organization like CBS News with its heritage and stated commitment to the highest standards of journalism. The Panel heard from many that the Rather/Mapes team was a formidable force at 60 Minutes Wednesday. Great trust was placed in Mapes, a highly respected producer who had just produced a widely acclaimed segment on the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, and vast deference was given to Rather, the “face” of CBS News. These factors, along with the “crash” of the production, contributed greatly to the failures of the September 8 Segment and the Aftermath.

If the panel does not believe that political motivations played a part in airing this segment then the panel loses a significant amount of credibility with regard to any report that it issues. This statement by the panel simply cannot be sustained. Political motivation, whether conscious or not, played a huge part in all of this. The very fact that this tired story was aired so close to a presidential election - to the obvious intended detriment of George W. Bush - in itself is prima-facie evidence of a "political motivation" against Mr. Bush. All statements made by the panel must now be measured within the context that the panel cannot accept this fundamental reality.

These are only my first impressions of the report. Much more will be coming today and in the next few days as the report is thoroughly digested. The blogosphere's reaction to this report will be covered here as well.

The entire report can be found here.

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty:

The good news: All of us had heard ominous rumblings before the report, and this report did not live up to our worst expectations.

This report did not come out late on a Friday afternoon. It did not come out with an attempt to distract from the bad news, like an announcement of Rather’s replacement as anchor of the CBS Evening News. The language of the panel is tough, and the three resignations and firing of Mapes are big and serious consequences. This is not a slap on the wrist.

The bad news: As we see, Moonves is taking the report as a certification that the mistakes “were not motivated by any political agenda.”

Many conservatives thought CBS News was out to get the president before this memo story ever aired; the memo story just illustrated that producers like Mary Mapes are as bad as they imagined. While many folks, including myself, want to give the network credit for a thorough and tough internal investigation with a lengthy report to the public, it will be quite a while before anyone takes this report as a reason to declare CBS as fair to the President, Republicans, or conservatives.

Does the panel really think that CBS would have acted in the same manner in a seemingly-great story that would have hurt John Kerry? Are we really to believe that it was solely “competitive pressures” that led to this, and that no one in this process had their thinking influenced by a desire to see Bush defeated in this year’s election?

For all of their good work, Thornburgh and Boccardi did CBS and the readers of this report a disservice for not addressing this issue a little tougher. After all, what made this story such a "great story"? It wasn't just the exclusivity of the scoop - it was its value in hurting the president and portraying him as a young man who benefited from direct intervention by Gen. Buck Staudt to "sugarcoat" Bush's record.

Captain Ed believes that the report "damns...CBS rather conclusively"

Agreed that the report is not a "whitewash" as such. But it approaches a whitewash, and certainly indicates continued denial of the fact that political motivation did indeed play a role in the pursuit and airing of this story.

Michelle Malkin:

Instead of relying on disinterested, qualified document experts, Rather and Mapes (grateful for Col. Hackworth's invaluable assistance in her acclaimed Abu Ghraib expose, no doubt) ignore the complete worthlessness of Hackworth's "expertise" and crusade to include his ill-informed, inflammatory interview in their hit piece on Bush in order to show that the Killian documents are "genuine."

If this isn't "adequate proof" of the political motivation of Mapes and Rather, what is?

Indeed!

UPDATE: My attention is brought to the report stating that the team producing the segment had a "zealous belief in the truth of the segment." What was the origin of this zeal? It wouldn't be political, would it? It wouldn't be a bias against George W. Bush, would it? If it were - as it most certainly was - the report's conclusion that it "does not believe that political motivations drove the September 8 Segment" - again - is not credible.

UPDATE: Hugh:

How do you spell "whitewash?" From the CBS report on Rathergate, page 211:

"The question of whether a political agenda played any role in the airing of the Segment is one of the most subjective, and most difficult, that the Panel has sought to answer. The political agenda question was posed by the Panel directly to Dan Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, who appear to have drawn the greatest attention in terms of possible political agendas. Both strongly denied that they brought any political bias to the Segment. The Panel recognizes that those who saw bias at work in the Segment are likely to sweep such denials aside. However, the Panel will not level allegations for which it cannot offer adequate proof.

The Panel does not find a basis to accuse those who investigated, produced, vetted or aired the Segment of having a political bias. The Panel does note, however, that on such a politically charged story, coming in the midst of a presidential campaign in which military service records had become an issue, there was a need for meticulous care to avoid any suggestion of an agenda at work. The Panel does not believe that the appropriate level of care to avoid the appearance of political motivation was used in connection with this story."

This is an abdication by the Panel of the central question. The report ends with this absurd conclusion:

"Inevitably, some inside and outside CBS News will fault a few, if not many, of the Panel's findings and conclusions. We will have been too tough, too easy, intrusive, timid, unfair, naïve, gullible or more. This is not a simple story, but we are confident that we have told it fully and fairly."

"Too tough?" With a punt on the central question of the controversy? CBS got what it wanted --a slap on the wrist, an apparent wrap-up with the dismissal of some underlings. The culture of undisclosed bias gets a pass, and the obvious corruption of the "news" process in the service of the Democratic Party is classified as "unknowable" because Dan Rather and Mary Mapes said they weren't partisans? What a joke, as transparent a whitewash as the documents were forgeries.

Posted at 10:20 AM Pacific