CBS still parsing the truth
Sunday, October 10th, 2004
New York Daily News - nydailynews.com
Rathergate be damned, CBS News still doesn't get it.
A month after it embarrassed itself with the discredited story about President Bush's National Guard service, the network continues to send mixed signals about the mess it created. Most shocking, top brass apparently are allowing the same team that screwed up the initial report to keep working on the story.
Note to CBS: The first rule of holes is, when you find yourself in one, stop digging. Step away from the shovel!
But noooo. Having learned nothing the first time, CBS seems doomed and determined to repeat history. Mary Mapes, the producer who masterminded the disaster and tainted her colleagues by putting her source in touch with the Kerry campaign, could be among those working on the story even now.
"I don't know" was all a spokesman would say about what Mapes is doing. Incredibly, Mapes seems not to be barred from the reporting team, which could air a new report on the suspect memos any day now. If this were a movie, I'd call it "Dumb and Dumber."
The chance the network will deliver another "scoop" soon took on added significance when Leslie Moonves, co-president of CBS parent Viacom, said the panel probing the initial story would deliver its report after Nov. 2. "It should be done after the election is over so it doesn't affect what is going on," Moonves said last week.
So much for the independence of probers Dick Thornburgh, the former U.S. attorney general, and Louis Boccardi, former head of The Associated Press. Flacks rushed to "clarify" Moonves' remarks, saying the panel would set its timetable, but I'm getting more confused and suspicious about what CBS is up to.
The network wants it both ways. Although News President Andrew Heyward and Dan Rather apologized for the flawed story, they refuse to concede the memos they relied on were fake, as virtually every expert in America says they are. The network says only it can't "authenticate" them.
That parsing of the truth smacks of the arrogant defensiveness used to ward off the first questions about the story. And it's only slightly more contrite than the smears Rather aimed at honest journalists who dared doubt his judgment.
More troubling, Heyward and Rather have held no one accountable, including themselves. Not a single person at CBS has been disciplined in any way, with a spokesman saying everyone involved is working in the same capacity.
So all the responsibility for putting Humpty Dumpty back together again was laid on Thornburgh and Boccardi, meaning CBS outsourced its ethics and standards.
Apparently freed from such messy tasks, the gang that couldn't shoot straight is preparing to take another shot at the story.
That turns the probe into a facade for business as usual. And allows the bosses to maintain the illusion of accountability and remorse.
Make no mistake: Something very bad and very damaging happened here. And not just to CBS. Coming during a nasty election where the media have too often been the story, the shame of Rathergate has eroded America's fragile trust in all news organizations.
The network must clean its own house immediately. Until it does, everything it says is suspect.
Especially those apologies.
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