CBS Memo: Selective
punishment shows media's true bias
Fair.org
January 12, 2005
From the media interest surrounding CBS's investigation into
"Memogate," one would think that the credibility of 60 Minutes'
report on George W. Bush's National Guard service was the most
pressing media issue facing the nation.
Shortly after the report about Bush's National Guard service
aired on 60 Minutes (9/8/04), right-wing commentators and
bloggers claimed that the documents supporting the CBS report
were fraudulent and pointed to the episode as evidence of
"liberal media" bias.
In fact, the CBS review, headed by former Attorney General
Dick Thornburgh (an appointee of Bush's father) and former
Associated Press president Louis Boccardi, was not able to state
conclusively whether the documents were forgeries or not. The
report also found no evidence that political bias was a factor in
the network's journalism. Instead, the report documented a series
of misjudgments on the part of several CBS staffers, most notably
producer Mary Mapes.
CBS's investigation did document serious failures in 60
Minutes' efforts to check its source's claims--an endemic problem
in commercial news. If "Memogate" had called attention to the
general issue of credulous journalism, it would have performed a
valuable service for the public. But the media discussion of the
incident generally treated it as either an aberration or as an
emblem of left-wing media bias.
The hours of coverage of the Rather episode managed to ignore
what should have been the central question: Did George W. Bush,
in reality, properly fulfill his National Guard requirements? On
September 14, FAIR noted that CBS was only one of several media
outlets to release important reports about documented
discrepancies in Bush's service record. Because of the focus on
the CBS documents and the accompanying right-wing accusations of
media bias on the issue, those stories-- and the important
questions they raised-- were quickly dropped by a cowed press
corps.
The claims that this controversy proves that CBS, or the media
as a whole, have a liberal or anti-Bush bias, are ludicrous. When
CBS staffers got caught taking shortcuts on a story critical of
Bush, it cost them their careers. By contrast, other reporters
have received much less scrutiny and punishment for offenses of
far greater magnitude-- and with much more significant
consequences to society. The New York Times, for example,
published numerous allegations about weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq that turned out to be false-- such as one source's claim
that "all of Iraq is one large storage facility" for WMD
(9/8/02). Those stories, many of which were splashed on the
paper's front page, did a great deal to sell the White House's
bogus case for war against Iraq.
While the Times has admitted (5/26/04) that some of its WMD
reporting was "insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand
unchallenged," the reporter most responsible for those stories,
Judith Miller, was never sanctioned by the Times-- and indeed
still continues to report on Iraq for the paper. Ironically,
after MSNBC's Hardball finished its discussion of CBS and
journalistic responsibility on January 10, the show turned to a
discussion of Iraq featuring... Judith Miller.
The lesson of "Memogate," then, is that journalists may be
punished for bad reporting-- if they have offended the wrong
people. If they have merely helped steer the country into war
under false pretenses, their careers can continue unimpeded.
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