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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: unclewest who wrote (81163)	10/27/2004 3:51:23 PM
From: LindyBill	of 793843

RATHERGATE - Deja vu all over again redux Filed under: General— Kevin Craver @ 12:01 pm New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta took the time during a journalism leadership seminar last week to blast cBS “News” management for not asking Mary Mapes for the identity of her off-the-record sources. On the current “Memogate” scandal at CBS News, Auletta expressed incredulity that no one in management had asked the producer of the now-discredited report on President Bush’s National Guard service to identify her sources. Auletta says his editor at The New Yorker insists on knowing Auletta’s sources, as well as sources used by Seymour Hersh and other prominent writers. As does any editor or producer with half a brain. But would it have done any good if cBS “News” overlords knew that Mapes’ “unimpeachable source” was in fact a left-wing nut well-known inside the Beltway for being a nut? These are the same people who ignored an expert who questioned the documents’ authenticity because he was “too pro-Bush.” I find it funny that cBS “News” could learn a lesson or two from the 38,000-circulation daily I worked at before Uncle Sam told me to trade in my pen for a sword. Our editorial policy regarding anonymous sources is simple: Avoid them at all costs. And on those rare occasions the editors approve, they need to know who the sources are. And if sources do get to talk anonymously, they can’t make personal attacks. Disgraced NYT editor and autocrat Howell Raines was pinched by critics and his reporters alike for the same offense. He accepted and ran the infamous sniper story from fellow sociopath Jayson Blair without once asking how this coke-snorting rookie with a checkered work record scored a major scoop built on anonymous sources. I have to hand it to Auletta – regardless of personal politics, he knows bad journalism when he sees it. A year after writing a fawning profile of Raines, he criticized Raines for not asking Blair for his sources, and rhetorically asked whether the Times diversity-at-all-costs program made the Gray Lady’s black eye possible. Let’s hope that what happened to Raines happens to Rather and Mapes. It looks silly that my newspaper’s ethics are better enforced than a national news organization. If my editors wouldn’t show me the door for running with obviously forged documents, I’d surely get thrown out on my duff for putting my source in contact with the DNC.

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