CBS documents on Bush service false

Up For Debate

During the CBS broadcast of "60 Minutes" on Sept. 8, Dan Rather reported on the doubts surrounding President Bush’s fulfillment of his National Guard duties during the Vietnam War. Some of the primary evidence Rather used were documents that Bill Burkett, a veteran of the Texas Air National Guard, had turned over to CBS after receiving them from an anonymous source. The documents appeared to be authored by Bush’s late commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, and indicated that Bush had failed to report for a physical and was receiving special treatment from Killian’s superiors.

Almost immediately after the documents aired, their veracity was called into question in Internet chat rooms by people who claimed the fonts used could not have been printed by a typewriter in 1972, the year Burkett claims the documents were produced. CBS launched an internal investigation and concluded that they could not verify the authenticity of the documents.

The controversy thickened when it was revealed that CBS producer Mary Mapes had contacted Sen. John Kerry’s campaign and put them in contact with Burkett. CBS also allegedly ignored the advice of its experts in airing the papers after White House communication director Dan Bartlett declined to comment on the documents. Marian Carr Knox, a former secretary for Killian, claims that she never typed those documents, but that they accurately reflect Killian’s sentiment toward Bush.

Senior Travis Jones and sophomore Brian Goodman discuss CBS’ actions in this week’s "Up for Debate."

Travis Jones, senior writer

Contrary to popular belief, Dan Rather is not a robot that gets recharged every night in the CBS studios — he is a living, breathing 72-year-old man who has earned a great deal of respect during his 42 years with "CBS News." However, Rather clearly has damaged his credibility with this recent incident. The timing is horrendous — right in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has been around long enough to know that a story must be valid before it is aired. Yet, Rather reported on "60 Minutes" to 8.1 million viewers that authentic documents revealed George W. Bush received preferential treatment in the Vietnam-era National Guard. 8.1 million people — not to mention everyone who found out the following week. Now it turns out that the documents may be fake. Rather, who said, "I have never been so confident of a story in my life," wasn’t so confident when he learned the documents weren’t real.

Rather issued an on-air apology on CBS nearly two weeks after he broke the story. Bravo, Dan. Rather has no excuse for not exhibiting the responsibility, effort and die-hard journalism he has shown over the past four decades. To be a broadcast journalist on a major network you can’t make mistakes like this — you just can’t. Dan Rather, once dubbed the "hardest working man in broadcast journalism," may want to start working just a little bit harder if he wishes to regain his credibility.

Brian Goodman, staff writer

Before the accusations start flying about being sucked into the vast right wing conspiracy, let’s get one thing straight: What happened at CBS was no accident. There is no way that "60 Minutes," a premier television newsmagazine, could have committed such journalistic gaffes as it did without full knowledge.

If it was intentional, the intention behind it was to hurt a Republican president. Not only would it have been detrimental to a Republican, but it would have been proactive to a Democrat, taking the heat off of John Kerry, who was sweating under the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth controversy. The story of Bush’s kid-glove National Guard service would have gotten the pressure put back where CBS wanted it, on Bush himself.

Liberal bias at CBS almost is as well-documented a phenomenon as Bill Clinton’s sexual exploits; whole books have been written on the topic. It therefore is no surprise CBS intentionally would violate such journalistic standards to hustle an exposé on Bush in an expedient fashion for Kerry.

But if we know that the most accurate thing on "60 Minutes" is that giant stopwatch, we must accept the responsibility of being more discerning viewers. All news reports should be taken with a grain of salt anyway, but in light of CBS’ bias, we now must be willing to take the whole shaker.