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CBS: Yes, we blew it
on the Bush memo
Says key source lied to Rather about documents
As
expected, CBS today issued a statement saying its controversial
"60 Minutes" segment alleging special treatment for
George W. Bush while he was in the Air National Guard during
Vietnam relied in part on documents that may in fact be bogus.
In a statement released at midday, the network said
the source of the document intentionally misled a producer working
for CBS correspondent Dan Rather on the documents' origin.
Initially, Bill
Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Guard, told "60
Minutes" he got them from another former Guardsman, according
to the network statement.
Burkett has since changed his story and now admits
they came from some other source but apparently a source he is
unwilling to name.
In its statement, the network says the disputed
documents, contained in the Sept. 8 segment, came from a
"source whose connection to the documents and identity CBS
News has been unable to verify to this point."
Burkett
will be interviewed tonight on "CBS Evening News with Dan
Rather."
In
light of this revelation, CBS says the segment should not have been
aired. In a statement attributed to CBS News President Andrew
Heyward, the network said:
"Based on what we now know,
CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is
the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in
the report. We should
not have used them. That
was a mistake, which we deeply regret.
"Nothing
is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith
with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate,
reliable, and independent reporting. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that
trust."
The Heyward statement said the network had every
confidence when the episode ran that the report was accurate.
"However, in the wake of serious and disturbing
questions that came up after the broadcast, CBS News has done
extensive additional reporting in an effort to confirm the
documents’ authenticity. That
included an interview featured on last week’s edition of '60
Minutes' Wednesday, with Marian Carr Knox, secretary to the late
Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the officer named as the author of the
documents; the interview with Bill Burkett to be seen tonight, and
a further review of the forensic evidence on both sides of the
debate."
Rather also released a statement, reading in part, "We made a
mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that
was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to
carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without
fear or favoritism."
For much of the last week, CBS and anchor Rather steadfastly stood behind the
authenticity of the documents, and did so against a rising sea of attacks from the Bush
White House and others, including forensic experts, who have argued that the documents
were forgeries.
But as the weekend approached, Rather shifted his stand, arguing that the story of
favoritism toward the young Bush, then a jet pilot, was still solid, apart from the
contested documents.
And last night, network executives were admitting that they too had come to doubt
those documents and were preparing to publicly admit that the
document may well be forgeries.
The bigger issue, and the most buzzed about, is how "60 Minutes"
producers got taken.
Another is what this means for Rather, who is on the verge of retirement. CBS
haters, along with some Bush supporters, would delight in seeing Rather pushed into early
retirement, a scapegoat for what they choose to see as the excesses of a liberal press
anxious to sink Bush through whatever means.
Rather would be an especially good catch because of his role as CBS's White
House correspondent during Watergate. Among network TV reporters, Rather was the most
aggressive in pursuing the scandal that eventually drove Richard Nixon from the
presidency. Old grudges die hard in conservative Washington circles.
But for its part, CBS cannot afford anything close to a full recanting on the
"60 Minutes" segment. It must stand fully behind its news operation even as it
allows that some documents might be of questionable origin.
In
a release to the press last Wednesday, CBS said two of the four document experts it hired had
since “misrepresented their conversations and communication with CBS News,”
while two others stood by their previous assessments.
The network also featured an interview Wednesday night with former National
Guard secretary Knox, who said she believed the documents were not genuine,
but their sentiments were. Some members of the Republican National Committee have
suggested the Kerry campaign might be responsible for forging the documents, which a
campaign spokesman dismissed.
Burkett, a former officer in
Bush's guard unit, is a Democrat and an open Kerry supporter. |
Sept. 20,
2004 © 2004 Media Life
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