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The Vast Conspiracy was ... Right!
Rich Galen Wednesday September 22, 2004
TIME IS GROWING SHORT!
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From Hartford, Connecticut
The Connecticut Automobile Dealers Association
News Flash! CBS used undependable documents to damage the Presidential campaign of George W. Bush.
The story first aired on September 8 but it took until September 20 for CBS to admit that the documents were � Hmmm, just what did CBS admit to, and apologize for?
Nothin', is what.
According to a Page One Washington Post piece by Howard Kurtz, "CBS is still not saying that the memos are forgeries, only that the network cannot confirm they are authentic."
And Dan Rather, according to Kurtz' story, still believes he is being put upon by people who, as Rather put it, "have a specific partisan political or ideological agenda."
Earth to Rather.
According to USA Today, Bill Burkett, the guy who gave the documents to CBS, says that part of the "understanding" was to have CBS put him in touch with a high ranking staffer in the Kerry campaign. CBS producer Mary Mapes called Joe Lockhart (one of the 2,357 spokesmen recently added to the Kerry campaign) and "asked him to call Bill Burkett."
Which Lockhart did, leading one to an interesting, if oxymoronic, discussion about campaign ethics.
TiVo and replay in slow motion: Mary Mapes - a CBS News producer - calls Joe Lockhart - a senior Kerry campaign operative - not to move the story ahead or get Kerry's reaction to the memos; but solely and specifically to get a known anti-Bush guy in contact with the top echelons of the Kerry campaign.
Earth to Mapes.
As part of its cover up, CBS pointed a finger at White House communications director Dan Bartlett who had been shown the memos a few hours ahead of the original broadcast. According to USA Today's summary of what happened and when (called, in the trade, a "tick-tock"), Bartlett did "not challenge the authenticity of the documents."
That may be among the more outrageous bits of this whole sordid story. CBS shows a senior White House staffer some documents who, expecting a well-respected news organization to behave in a more-or-less principled manner, never thinks to challenge their validity. Bartlett did, however, strongly disagree with CBS' central theory - that Lt. George W. Bush did not serve honorably in the National Guard.
Nevertheless, CBS puts Bartlett's non-challenge into the "Documents Authenticated" column and uses that as evidence of its thoroughness.
Earth to CBS.
CBS will go out of the news business. Not tomorrow afternoon, but fairly soon. And so will NBC and ABC.
The exact moment marking the beginning of the end of broadcast network news will be remembered as the evening of Tuesday, August 31, 2004 when Fox News Channel drew over 7 million viewers; more than any outlet - cable or broadcast - to its coverage of the Republican National Convention.
CBS, NBC, and ABC are no longer the go-to places for news. They have become exclusively entertainment engines. Proof: Which of those three did you watch when you were tracking Hurricane Ivan?
As more people turn more often to cable, the bean counters at the major nets will decide they can allow their affiliates to contract for national news with CNN or Fox or whomever they want and save the networks the enormous expense of running their own news divisions.
Dan Rather will not be the cause CBS going out of the news business. But, this episode will most certainly hasten its departure.
Good night, Chet. Good night, David.
New subject: If you forget to bring a book along on your trip to Hartford and you find yourself reading Scientific American magazine you will be treated to sentences like these:
Plant cells can tag desaturases so that they go to chloroplasts, where photosynthesis occurs. Without the tags, these desaturases, instead, entered the endoplasmic reticulum where they forged bonds in different places along the fatty acid chains.
Earth to Rich.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to Howie Kurtz' piece and the three USA Today stories. An interesting Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day you will want to download and frame!
--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen
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