Rambling Rhodes

Journalism 101

Well, here it is. It's a bit late, but it's nice to see a little journalistic integrity being displayed here.

It's a long report. Very long. And it covers a lot more than simply whether CBS report relied on forged documents (which it doesn't admit, surprisingly). The length and depth of the report, however, explains why it took since Sept. 22 for it to come out.

Given the sheer length of the report, and given that I'm at work, trying to juggle other, work-related, material, I can only point out some excerpts on the fly.

Smith told the Panel that when Lieutenant Colonel Burkett provided the documents on September 2, he said that he had received them anonymously in the mail. Mapes had a different recollection of what Lieutenant Colonel Burkett said at the same meeting about the source of the documents. Mapes said that Lieutenant Colonel Burkett stated that he received the documents after he was interviewed on a national television show in February 2004 concerning President Bush’s TexANG service, but did not say how he received them or from whom. Mapes added that she spoke to Lieutenant Colonel Burkett on several occasions over the next couple of days to get more information about the source of the documents. Ultimately, Lieutenant Colonel Burkett told Mapes on either September 4 or 5 that he had received the documents from another former Texas Army National Guardsman, Chief Warrant Officer George Conn, a statement that Lieutenant Colonel Burkett would later admit was not true. Mapes and her team of associate producers did virtually nothing to attempt to contact Chief Warrant Officer Conn to confirm this story and further trace the chain of custody of the documents.

Oops.

Given the tight deadline, Miller did not have sufficient time to learn the fundamentals of document authentication. Had she known the basics, she would have realized that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to authenticate the Killian documents because they were copies, the alleged author was dead and no person could be located who was alleged to have been present when the documents were prepared. She instead called various people who she believed had experience in the document and handwriting field to identify potential examiners with requisite expertise. After approximately six hours of work on Friday, September 3, Miller had found four examiners who seemed to have expertise in document and handwriting authentication and who were willing to work over the Labor Day weekend.

Again. Oops. Mind you, I'm all for obtaining a scoop, it's one of the driving ambitions of every beat reporter in the field. But, here you have some grainy, Kinkos copies of supposed damning documents in front of you, and you boil down your vetting process to six hours, with four examiners who were "willing" to work over the Labor Day weekend? Jeez.

On Tuesday, September 7, Rather interviewed Ben Barnes, and a number of excerpts from this interview appeared in the September 8 Segment. The Panel has several concerns about whether the airing of the Barnes interview excerpts constituted fair and accurate reporting by 60 Minutes Wednesday. For example, the excerpts pertaining to Barnes conveyed the 13 unmistakable impression that President Bush gained entry into the TexANG through preferential treatment. Barnes stated, however, that he did not know if his call to a TexANG official back in 1968 made any difference with respect to President Bush. Further, Mapes had been told previously by several former TexANG officers that President Bush entered the TexANG without any preferential treatment. Finally, Mapes confirmed to the Panel that there was conflicting information about whether there even was a waiting list to get in the TexANG as of the spring of
1968. At a minimum, these issues should have been disclosed to the 60 Minutes Wednesday management, but they were not.

I've been trying to revisit my belief that media organizations are biased, primarily thanks to input from Joshua Norton and David Grenier. Still, I've basically come to the conclusion that there is bias, both left and right, throughout the mainstream media. Here, Mapes had supposedly been pursuing a story about Bush's TANG record for "years." Therefore, it stands to reason that she had a preconcieved notion as to what the "truth" actually was, which led to errors in judgement like that illustrated above. One thing newsrooms consistently do is to rotate reporting beats so reporters don't become too familiar with a topic area and develop their own opinions, opnions which can slip into their work. This seems to be what happened here. Which, as I read further. . .

2. Was pursued intermittently for over five years, which could cause the correspondent and producer to become too personally invested in the story;

And I love this part:

Rather does not appear to have participated in any of the vetting sessions or to have even seen the Segment before it was aired.

Then we have this little bit of comedy gold:

All agree that they knew virtually nothing about Chief Warrant Officer Conn, who at that time was thought to be the ultimate source. Mapes and the vetters
have different accounts as to what she told them about Lieutenant Colonel Burkett. Most of the 15 vetters told the Panel that they did not think they heard the name Bill Burkett as the source of the documents prior to the airing of the Segment but did know that the source was a former National Guardsman. Even if the name Bill Burkett had been mentioned, all the vetters said it would not have meant anything to them.

And yet Rather went and said that the source of the documents was "unimpeachable," for a report on which he wasn't even a part of the vetting process, let alone a report he didn't even both to review. Fabulous.

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.

In other words, fake but accurate.

Over the next week or so, CBS News issued a number of press statements and CBS Evening News reports that staunchly defended the September 8 Segment despite increasingly strong indications that the reporting for the Segment was flawed. The Panel finds that these statements and reports contained numerous misstatements and inaccuracies. Moreover, the Panel finds that once serious questions were raised, the defense of the Segment became more rigid and emphatic, and that virtually no attempt was made to determine whether the questions raised had merit.

Ouch.

The Panel finds that Lieutenant Colonel Burkett could not be reasonably described as an “unimpeachable source,” 21 given his own inconsistent public statements, as well as his criticisms of President Bush and the National Guard. Further, the statement was inaccurate because the Killian documents were not
backed up by forensic document experts.

Oh, and Rather will be leaving CBS news prematurely, if you didn't already know.

Mapes told the Panel that before Lieutenant Colonel Burkett turned over any of the documents, he had pressed her to arrange for him to be put in touch with someone from the Kerry presidential campaign so that he could provide the campaign with strategic advice on how to rebut the attacks by the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” group.

Right then and there, Mapes should have slammed on the brakes, in my opinion. If someone calls and promises to give you some damning documents, but only if you put him in touch with a presidential campaign (and why did Burkett seemingly know that Mapes could deliver that?), you should realize that your journalistic fibers are being stretched, if not torn asunder.

Oh, and Mapes got the axe, too, appropriately.

Whether or not permission was given to Mapes, the Panel finds this contact to be highly inappropriate. The September 8 Segment had a strong political focus and it was to air in the middle of a hotly contested presidential campaign.
While it is certainly proper to receive information from a variety of sources, this contact crossed the line as, at a minimum, it gave the appearance of a political bias and could have been perceived as a news organization’s assisting a campaign as opposed to reporting on a story.

The Panel did not conclude that the piece was politically motivated, however. Even though they admit that:

While the Panel was not asked to look at any other segments of 60 Minutes Wednesday, it did not find any evidence that the flaws of the September 8 Segment carried over to any other segment.

Odd, that.

Overall, I have to admit that the thoroughness of the report is impressive, to the tune of 234 pages, and the findings, at least upon cursory review, seem to be fair and balanced. I'm sure the blogosphere will be tearing through the report like a cat with toilet paper over the next few days. But, the report authors have addressed that, as well:

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.

We'll see what other people think shortly, I'm sure.

UPDATE: Like I said: Rathergate.com, ratherbiased.com, Instapundit.com, Andrewsullivan.com.

Folks like Sullivan and Instapundit are pointing towards political bias in the 60 Minutes piece, which I suspect as well. However, it was not the job of the panel to expose political bias. They weighed the pros and cons of such a theory, and plugged it into the broader picture of the journalistic meltdown that resulted in the story. I think the panel did a good job examining the political issue, and they, correctly, treated it as a sidenote to the larger investigation.

Posted by Ryan at January 10, 2005 11:34 AM