Posted on 01/10/2005 7:04:52 AM PST by Pikamax
CBS) Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush’s National Guard service.
The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with “rigid and blind” defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report.
Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.
The correspondent on the story, CBS News anchor Dan Rather, is stepping down as anchor of CBS Evening News.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
good riddance. may they never find work in the media again. anywhere, in any way.
A whitewash and a joke!
The whole thing is a joke...not that we expected less.
Exactly. I'll bet the "investigators" didn't even bother to run down any possible connection between the fraudulent documents and the Kerry campaign.
Damn. They MUST have been embarrassed. I would have just terminated her employment.
And Rather, being Mapes' boss gets what punishment???
Rateh is not being fired, what a crock. He should have been the first.
Doesn't matter. They'll just find work in the lefty orgs they were already in cahoots with, and it'll be like they never left.
Why he gets to retire from the anchor desk and continue to work on both 60 Minutes programs.
Hmmm, I always thought "fake but accurate" was a high standard (for CBS and the rest of the Alphabets).
I'm willing to bet Mapes got a nice exit package...probably in the millions $$.
Hanging crepes,
Crying hard
For Mary Mapes
And other Old Guard!
RIP
Exactly
Fox News just reporting some content of the report. The report states that it was just a zeal to get the scoop before their competitors. The report does not mention that CBS was out to get Bush.
Good God, I hate the way things are done sometimes.
The Other Shoe Drops at CBS
(CNSNews.com) - Four CBS News employees have been ousted in connection with the CBS 'Memogate' affair, press reports said on Monday. The fired CBS staffers include Senior Vice President Betsy West; "60 Minutes Wednesday" producer Josh Howard and his deputy, Mary Murphy; and Mary Mapes, the producer of the fraudulent segment on George W. Bush's National Guard service. Not fired, according to press reports, are CBS News President Andrew Heyward. Dan Rather, the anchor of the controversial piece, is retiring in March. More to come
LOL
As deserving as he was, CBS was not going to hose Rather. That would be corporate suicide admitting that the main man of CBS news for the last 25 years was a fraud.
At least it's not buried in a Friday afternoon release.
"...the notion that since the content of the documents was felt to be true, demonstrating the authenticity of the documents became less important.”
This really scares me
Big deal. CBS doesn't have the guts or integrity to fire the main perpetrator, Dan Blather. What I want to see is criminal charges against Blather and his cohorts for trying to affect the outcome of a Presidential election with a fraudulent document.
Has CBS RETRACTED the story yet?
Whitewash.
The panel called Mapes’ action a “clear conflict of interest that showed her absolute political bias.”
There - Now it's correct.
Sounds like institutional CYA. From now on, they will be more subtle in their efforts to propagandize the American electorate. Only the real loonies buy into the Michael Moore/Dan Rather/Maxine Waters/Barbara Boxer spiel.
If Freepers want to make a difference, don't get angry, LAUGH. By laughing at our opponents, we force others to wonder what is so funny. That's the path to scepticism.
It worked for me about 20 years ago, after the Jimmy Carter "attack rabbit". It made him a joke as a President. That was the last time I ever voted for a Democrat (and I live in an increasingly blue Illinois).
CBS isn't done. Their 60 Minutes (of lies) aired last night a hit piece on 50 cal weapons.
>>Mary Mapes, terminated. she was the instigator and facilitator. She needed to go<<<
I agree, she is more than Rather's lacky. She was the one hell bent on destroying W.
I am satisfied....
If you were serious about fixing the problem Andrew Heyward and Dan Rather should have been the first to be fired and it should have been done months ago.
I sounds like CBS is admitting that their vaunted "anchor man" is nothing but a talking head who has no input and therefore, no responsibility for his words. IOW, he's just a puppet on a string.
"myopic zeal" and "no political agenda" according to the investigation....LOL! YEAH RIGHT!
I seem to remember that the Texas Rangers were conducting their own investigation. Wonder how far that will go??? And how long it will take???
I never expected this report to see the light of day and I never expected CBS to take any more action than to issue an apology.
It will be considerably harder for mainstream media to marginalize the blogs after admiting that the best of CBS demonstrated worse judgment than could be expected from a first year journalism student.
Were there ANY 'competitors' also racing to get the story out? No...it was strictly a CBS/Rather obsession with the story.
Mary Mapes will get a job at PBS.
Ha! Jim Pinkerton says that everyone better realize that there are right now about 100 people getting ready to file stories on their blogs about whether or not what they say on TV about this story is stupid!! LOL!
Its call CYA. And CBS is doing it in its on inmitable style.
awwwww shucks, I was hoping they'd keep 'em on...
I mean what better icons of the left wing media than Mapes et al...dollars to donuts someone will hire them all before the week's out.."us lefties have to stick together now" LMAO
That's one more reason to never let up.
Bill Crystal is on Fox w/ Bridgete Quinn. CBS admitted to "myopic zeal" in wanting to be the 1st to bring the story to the public, but NO admission they were biased or dishonest.The arrogance of the msm is simply amazing.
"a zealous belief in the truth of the segment "
Truth is relative. /sarcasm
"The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated."
LOL! An ineresting choice of words, eh?
Dead producers tell no tales!
;-)
Then report doesn't come out and call the documents forgeries. if the report can't even get somethime SOOOO obvious correct., then everything else in it is worthless
They "couldn't tell if the documents were forgeries". I started laughing at that point.
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