Posted on 09/15/2004 6:16:28 AM PDT by OESY
...CBS has dismissed calls for an internal investigation into its reporting of the story, arguing that it was thoroughly reviewed before broadcast. "I'm confident in the process of vetting that got the story on air. When we say we continue to report the story you can be sure we're being conscientious in responding to these allegations," says CBS News President Andrew Heyward. CBS may offer further evidence in support of its story as early as today.
The stakes are high for "60 Minutes," the undisputed gold standard in television news.... Its longtime producer, Don Hewitt, 81, has retired unenthusiastically, and its correspondents are aging. Mike Wallace is 86; Morley Safer is 72. Mr. Rather, who himself is 72, is lead correspondent for the "60 Minutes" Wednesday edition.
All broadcast-news executives are under siege.... Just last month cable upstart Fox News Channel beat the three broadcasters head-to-head in coverage of the Republican convention, in the few hours that the networks bothered to cover it at all. Ratings for the evening news programs continue to slide while the morning shows and newsmagazines often seem more focused on entertainment stories, true crime and corporate synergy. As Mr. Rather and CBS have been taking heat this week, NBC's "Today" has been offering three days of interviews with author Kitty Kelley about her gossipy Bush-bashing tome, "The Family."
"Network news is diminished," says Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the think tank Project for Excellence in Journalism....
..."I think CBS definitely made an error in saying there is no investigation needed because if they had done the opposite and said 'of course we're investigating,' it would have bought them time and would have at least acknowledged that certain transparencies in news organizations are becoming required," says Jay Rosen, chairman of New York University's Journalism Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"That's the problem when you rely on days-old information from print journalism instead of immediately turning to FreeRepublic.com for Breaking News," said this unabashed supporter.
Ya think?!?
You don't say.
Yes, they could. Sort of like an asteroid the size of Antarcica could damage the earth's ecosystems.
As far as I am concerned, they lost their credibility a very long time ago.
OXYMORON ALERT!
Here is a copyright-ready cartoon for any use that's noncommercial... emails, signs, flyers, whatever
CBS? What "credibility"?
If I read something correctly yesterday it stated CBS viewers were up.
Strange world we live in or is it.
;-)
"Did someone write Forgeries "COULD" Damage CBS Credibility? "
WHAT credibility??? Wonder aside from the FREEPERS who watched how many Americans actually did watch???
Other than the liberals salivating and the FREEPERS who else would watch? Could it be that this is exactly the plan from the beginning, that somebody would call the documents forgeries? Maybe the only thing that did not go according to the plan was the speed with which the "forgeries" were outed and by whom.
The legal perimiter of journalism fraud are found in defamation and copyright law.
CBS is plowing precedent-setting ground here.
Well, remember when NBC did the story on how Chevy pickup gas tanks were dangerous, and it came out that NBC had been forced to use fireworks in their effort to show how easily they could explode?
Er, 'political partisan.'
= we continue to report the story . . . being conscientious in repeating the allegations [against Bush]
"CBS may offer further evidence in support of its story as early as today. "
hmmmmm
Wait a second. Isn't the Killian secretary "Mrs. Knox" 86? Could it be that the "source" is Mike Wallace in drag?
The sad thing is that they had any credibility in the first place.
Well, nobody else is. Perhaps some new blood is needed at CBS News, starting at the top. If so, it sounds like it would be the first new blood there since about 1970 - which perhaps not-so-coincidentally is when Kerry started making his name.
Beldar Blog nails it with the September 15 post. Read the whole thing.
Excerpt:
Dan Rather was complicit in defrauding the American public in an attempt to defeat a sitting President.
Rather must be fired now. Congress should subpoena CBS News' lawyers and all documentation of their advice.
But Dan Rather and CBS News had become co-conspirators by the time of their broadcast. ABC News has revealed that two of the experts whom CBS News consulted before running the broadcast — Emily Will from North Carolina and Linda James of Plano, Texas — could not and would not authenticate the fraudulent Killian memos, and expressly told CBS that.
The first witness must be an appropriate custodian of records from CBS News, who must be directed to bring every shred of paper, every email, every piece of videotape, every computer file, every outtake, every script, every memorandum of staff meetings — and every bit of advice rendered by inside or outside legal counsel to CBS News prior to the broadcast. There is no attorney-client privilege to shield advice rendered to assist a client in the perpetration of a crime or a fraud. See, e.g., Swindler & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S. 399 (1998); United States v. Zolin, 491 U.S. 554 (1989).
They didn't want an internal investigation, so now they are going to get an external one. Bravissimo CBS.
Can you imagine what Rather, Hewitt and gang pulled off on viewers before the Pajama Posse was armed with PCs and Laptops?
Beldar is great. We should all read him every day.
CBS and Credibility? In the word of the retired Congress person from Colorado (her initials are PMS): "They just don't get it!"
Not really.
I never watch CBS, but I have been watching the CBS evening news lately to see Dan Rather squirm and lie. It's a beautiful thing.
I imagine a lot of others, like me, are too. Therfore, the viewership goes up. Everyone loves to watch a train wreck.
Its not only the end of Dan Rather, its the end of Dan Rathers.
Credibility? Bull Snit!
Only as long as this lasts...after that, viewership is going to dive.
Right now it is a lot of rubber-necking at the bloody accident.
Audi engineers sent them a report and test logs showing that there was a safety device that applied the brakes when the accelerator hit the floor while the car was at a stop and they failed to disclose that in their "Exclusive Expose'".
Diminished???? Tommy, that sound you are hearing is a toilet flushing.
No.
Po-jama People by Frank Zappa
Some people's hot
Some people's cold
Some people's not very
Swift to behold
Some people do it
Some see right through it
Some wear pyjamas
If only they knew it
The pyjamas people are boring me to pieces
They make me feel like I am wasting my time
They all got flannel up 'n down 'em
A little trap-door back aroun' 'em
An' some cozy little *footies* on their mind
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Lawd, they make you sleepy
With the things they might say
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
*Mother, Mary 'n Jozuf*, wish they'd all go away!
Po-jama people!
It's a po-jama people special...
Take one home with you & save a dollar today
Po-jama people!
Po-jama people, people!
Wrap 'em up
Roll 'em out
Get 'em out of my way
CBS....certainly bull sh*t
Can't damage what the lack.
That is just awesome!!!!!
Have any 'targets' of 60 Minutes' past segments, for which 60 Minutes lambasted them, run them out of business, etc., been as corrupt as Dan Rather has been?
Public opinion has been substantially influenced by their articles; have these also been researched so poorly? What kind of scrutiny will be placed on future articles? What kind of review needs to be done on previous articles? It's evident to me that what 60 Minutes has done, if not criminal, is awfully close to it.
Linda... YOU ROCK! This is awesome...
The sooner CBS fires Rather and cooperates with any probe to prosecute the original source(unimpeachable)for forgery of federal documents, the sooner they will be able to sleep. With or without pajamas.
...and Andy Rooney is 273.
Who were the models?
Did you ever see a car wreck on the highway?
LOL, seems to me this 'gold standard' has had some very significant runs in the past where they faked test results to get a story.
If I read something correctly yesterday it stated CBS viewers were up.
Hopefully it's the same impulse that leads to rubbernecking on highways.
That's a WONDERFUL graphic!
Of course more people are watching CBS. They want to see Dan fix his problem (or fall on his face).
The intersting thin is how the CBS reproters and staffers feel, knowing that they are a laughingstock. Over a period of months or years, this is going to hurt.
Does SeeBS have even a shred of credibility left? I haven't watched SeeBS for years and years. Also, their prime time shows suck swamp gas and really stink. SeeBS is the network most viewed by halfwits and morons.
It's worse than that. Not only was Audi not "hiding" such a problem, but Audi had no such problem in the first place.
The problem was that some Audi owners were mistakenly mashing their gas pedals instead of their brake pedals. In fact, the very case which "60 Minutes" made the centerpiece of their segment involved a woman whose statement to police actually admitted hitting the gas pedal by accident. "60 Minutes" chose to "forget" to mention that and slanted the incident, and the entire segment, in a way that made it look as if Audi had an unidentified mechanical problem which caused their cars to accelerate by themselves.
Audi's "fix" for the "problem" was to make it so that you couldn't shift the car out of Park or Neutral unless your foot was actually ON THE BRAKE (as opposed to somewhere else, like on the freaking gas pedal).
It's sad finding out that the integrity of the big 3 networks is not that great, since, where does that leave us?
But I guess most of us here at FR have been well aware of it for a long time.
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