Two Questions
I'm still working through the report on Memogate. I have a real job, what can I say? As I've been reading, two major questions have been occurring to me.
1. While the report is strongly worded and seems to place blame on the entity of CBS News as a administrative issue, it fails to identify the fact that the documents were forgeries or that there was obvious bias by the reporting parties. If you read the report, these two facts jump out at you. You don't even have to hardly ponder much about it, it is laid out pretty squarely for the reader. You don't even have to leap to come to the conclusion, it is the logical result at which you arrive. Despite this, the reasonable person rule doesn't seem to have applied to the panel. So my question then is this:
If what they have essentially handed CBS is "plausible deniability", what good are journalistic ethics anymore? When I was in school, we were taught that "balance" in reporting a story meant giving time to both sides. To begin with there is an obvious showing in the evidence that the story was sewn together only of the facts that served the endgame. All other facts were pushed aside as irrelevant or not tidy enough to fit in the box. Does this not add to the bias issue? Moreover, since Mapes continues to contend that stories are frequently made on documents that are copies, what is to keep me from creating documents that say George Washington, while crossing the Delaware, dictated a note to my great-great-great-to the nth degree uncle that I should be crowned Queen of the Western Territories in the year 2006? If they are copies, then what is to be argued? It would have been dictated, so no Geo. Washington signature, only the handwriting of a man in a boat (which one would expect to be somewhat sloppy). How would one authenticate such a document? Simply put, you can't.
Furthermore, I believe we expect a higher standard when we are discussing the Leader of the Free World. The original 60 Minutes spot was little more than character assassination. As such, somebody ought to be held responsible, and I don't mean by losing their job! The dangerous precedent has unfortunately already been set. Now, all you need is Microsoft Word 2000, a photocopier, and some creativity to make the news.
Maybe I wrote Gone With the Wind and Margaret Mitchell stole it from me and changed the names. That's all I'm saying. The standard set forth by the panel actually slides away from responsible journalism. They should have said, flat out, the documents were phony, and we expect a high degree of certainty from a news organization like CBS News, unless they are changing their image to a scandal rag. You know the types...Hillary Clinton gives birth to Elvis's Alien Love Child.
2. While the report isn't exactly a whitewash, it certainly fails to call a spade a spade, despite overwhelming evidence. That being said, suppose this same panel were to judge Sandy Berger over the Trousergate scandal. Would they similarly find Sandy didn't knowingly stuff those Federally protected documents into his pants and socks? Would they contend there was no proof he knowingly then destroyed some of the documents? What would they say to the National Archive Sting that caught Sandy Berger...red-panted? Enquiring minds want to know.
Labels: Pantsgate, Sandy Berger
