CBS's truly incompetent journalism

It all hit the fan on Monday. After two weeks of skepticism, the empire that Dan Rather and CBS News wanted so badly to build with phony Texas Air National Guard documents crumbled under pressure before the American press and public, forcing them to recant the story they believed would bring them to the pinnacle of investigative reporting. In a statement issued that day, Rather said, "Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers."

One only wonders whether CBS anticipated beforehand the outcry that would ensue over its broadcasting purportedly new National Guard documents allegedly incriminating President Bush. They fessed up earlier this week, but the damage was already done.

The producers of 60 Minutes should have known the mess they were getting into; maybe they needed to check with ABC -- hindsight is, after all, "20/20." Touche.

If they didn't, they severely miscalculated. The implications are enormous. It seems unfathomable that a major media outlet would knowingly spotlight a dubious story and herald it as groundbreaking. Not only is it illogical; it's downright negligent. CBS has forgotten the principles of journalistic integrity, and now it's struggling to stay afloat amidst new, better sources of competition.

The circumstances surrounding the situation seem suspicious. Producers claim to have been investigating the story as far back as 1999. CBS interviewed the secretary of Lt. Col. Killian, then-Lt. Bush's commander, who couldn't attest to the papers being real, but believed the content accurately reflected Killian's attitude toward Bush. CBS didn't report, however, that Killian's son and widow argued the opposite. Most importantly, they didn't seem to take into consideration the background of their source; credibility will make or break a controversial report. Apparently this isn't the first attempt for Bill Burkett, the admitted distributor of the documents, to bring down George W. Bush. As The Houston Chronicle reported last week, Burkett declared on the Internet last year that President Bush was modeled after Hitler and Napoleon "as one of ... "the three small men who wanted to conquer and vanquish.'" Burkett has a long history of resentment toward Bush dating back to their days together in the Guard.

Real journalism means covering every angle, regardless of whom it protects and whom it embarrasses. Andrew Heyward told The Washington Post last week that everyone "did a tremendous amount of reporting before the story went on the air, or we wouldn't have put it on the air." But CBS decision-makers knew all along that the story was questionable, if not outright false. Their hired document analysts felt uncomfortable with running the piece, including Marcel Matley and Emily Will, who couldn't verify the documents but are on 60 Minutes and Evening News appearing to affirm their authenticity.

In upstanding reporting, a questionable source with a questionable lead equals an unusable story. Now, their incompetence brings them humiliation and reduces their credibility. And they'll feel the reverberation for a while. It's not like there wasn't time to handle these issues before broadcasting.

Even in the past several years, Evening News' viewership has dipped so low that executives have considered filling its time slot with reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond. Of the three big networks (CBS, NBC and ABC), the Eye has long been considered second-tier in comparison. Thus, CBS finds itself in an awkward position, needing to attract more viewers by offering scandalous or never-before-seen footage.

They're going about it the wrong way, though, and in turn they're digging a deeper hole for themselves. CBS is trying to break news in an outdated forum. This worked when there were just those three networks, when it was normal to out-scoop each other. But now, with the promulgation of cable news and the Internet, it doesn't matter who's first. Within moments, an emerging story will be on every other network, anyway. Getting a story first isn't important -- getting it right is.

The incompetence of CBS in this case plays into a larger issue at hand. Network leaders are ill-equipped to sustain themselves amongst wider-spread competition. It exists in a media Stone Age, encapsulated by more savvy news outlets. CBS has yet to adapt to the new reality of attaining information. Moreover, it is finally being held accountable for its reporting. Within hours of the piece in question, bloggers, radio hosts and various media pundits hit the circuits, railing against the new documents. As The Wall Street Journal duly noted last Thursday, "The Rather episode shows that a competitive media marketplace serves the cause of truth, and does so with impressive speed. It also reminds us of the dangers of arrogance and complacency -- temptations from which none of us, regardless of ideology, is immune."

Michelle Dubert is a College sophomore from Closter, N.J. Department of Strategery appears on Thursdays.

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