Evidence that CBS News 60 Minutes II is guilty of malice and intent to defraud

ABC Evening News and USA Today | 9/14/2004 | Daniel

[swheats]

LOL I can't believe I used to give him an hour a day.

[spokeshave]

Excellent work....ignore the opinion from behind the curtain.

[Steven W.]

It's no wonder NYT reports that "Officials at CBS News said on Tuesday that they would at some point in the day provide the name of a document expert who expressed confidence in the records' authenticity before the report was broadcast. But they did not do so, and Ms. West declined to say why."

I bet I can say why ... because nobody that will pass the laugh test is going to sign off on these documents, even one at a time & particularly not all in tandemo ROFLMAO

[Boazo]

Ha Ha,Ping

[the_Watchman]

This is definitely BREAKING NEWS! Can you get a screen shot of that displayed document with the date? It does not accompany the ABC story.

The ABC story says: "Ultimately, they played a peripheral role and deferred to another expert who examined all four of the documents used,"

Clearly ABC does not understand that they were looking at a fifth document that CBS had suppressed.

I just posted to the admin moderator to suggest that this thread be put back in BREAKING NEWS.

Good job. Now, please get us the proof. If you don't have a means of getting a screen shot from the tape, then give us the city where you are. There may be a Freeper who can perform a screen capture for you. (Make a COPY of the tape!)

[Steven W.]

Give the poster another read - I think this is a bombshell. It makes clear the degree to which CBS knew that they were working with phony material ahead of time AND WITHELD IT FROM THE PUBLIC. They didn't say, in their report, CBS also obtained two other documents from the same source they weren't able to authenticate. Heck, they didn't authenticate any AND withheld the two. I wonder if USA Today knew that CBS did, indeed, have the extra two docs when they published their .pdf file.

[charleston1]

Yeah I can get a videograph up online. I'll do so ASAP! I'm off for awhile.

[Wild_Bill_8881]

You know what really amazes me is that here's the secretary that would have typed the original documents if there were any, still alive and living in Texas and anti-bush to boot and CBS made NO effort to find her before they ran with the story?

what's that say about their research?

[the_Watchman]

We may have another winner here if we can get charleston1 some help in preparing a screen shot of the document display from the ABC report!

Charleston1 saw something in the broadcast that ABC news missed! CBS was clearly shopping experts.

[spyone]

yes, USA does know cuz charleston posted the JPEG or whatever file it was 2 days ago!

[BunnySlippers]

Good findings. Thanks for posting.

[counterpunch]

Excellent analysis. I would like to add something else to this, to take it a step further.

According to president of CBS News itself made this damning statement to the New York Times:
Addressing staff concerns, Mr. Heyward said, "The story was thoroughly vetted as all pieces of '60 Minutes' are, and the more they know about the process, the more reassured they will be that we used every appropriate journalistic standard and safeguard in reporting the story."

I have a feeling this story was just given the usual treatment by CBS. I believe this is standard treatment for their news. I believe CBS routinely does "expert shopping" and reports the opinions, facts, and findings selectively.

The difference is this time they got caught. And they only got caught because of the very recent development of the internet blogsphere. Just imagine if blogs were around during the Clinton years...

I believe in light of these new revelations ALL CBS News reports over the years are now suspect and need to be thoroughly reviewed for manipulations.

Vincent Foster, anyone..?

[timberlandko]

The other two documents aren't "breaking news", nor is the existence of two not used by CBS any sort of "Smoking Gun". What is eminently newsworthy, however, is that another MSM entity not only has "Seen the Light" but deemed it fit to bring it to the masses. I imagine the top-floor offices at CBS aren't real pleasant places to be along about now ... whether you're Les Moonves, Dan Rather or just an expendable mid-level producer.

[spyone]

check out the link on post 18...I think he included the docs there if memory serves.

[Steven W.]

I think they did speak with her:

"that sounds like something he was saying again and that evil Bush was selected, not elected and he's unfit for command ... oh by the way, you know those documents are frauds. Bush, yeah he's like Hitler, he his, and he beat up on Ma Richards like nuthin's business."

They used what they could use. If you listen to how Rather described their so-called supporting witnesses you'll see what I mean, those sentiments bad about Bush he repeated verbatim, the incriminating stuff they swept aside and ignored. Exact same M/O as neglecting to mention this #5 memo that the examiner raked them over the coals over.

[MistyCA]

? It was news to me that someone had reviewed the docs days earlier and is not cited by 60 minutes as refuting the validity of what they examined. This is a huge story and someone who is trying to help get the facts out is doing more than posting vanity, imo. But then....that's just my opinion.

Hope you are having a great day/evening.

[Steven W.]

what I meant was I wonder if CNN knew that their counterparts at CBS had - likewise - received all 6 docs; at that point CBS had (as they do still) admitted having only 4 of the six docs. It's this poster's fine observation that CBS gave the examiner memo #5 that is the first clue that CBS wasn't just blind & stupid here.

[MJY1288]

Wow! I guess you told me......Now go upstairs and tell you Daddy what a man you were tonight here on Free Republic!

The management here at FR has been asking for a halt to "Vanity Posts" for days now, So my "snotty butt" isn't going anywhere :-)

[MistyCA]

You did good. Thanks!!!

[Jenya]

Good job. Welcome. Ignore the thread sheriffs unless they're mods.