Now that the inquiry into CBS’s faulty reporting on Georgie Boy’s National Guard service has
resulted in the dismissal of four top news
executives, the Bush regime suddenly values the principle of accountability.
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, without the slightest irony, “CBS has taken
steps to hold people accountable, and we appreciate those steps.”
Somebody should extend the inquiry. The independent panel — Louis Boccardi and Dick
Thornburgh — ought to be asked to take a look into a) the Bush regime itself for its rush to war in
Iraq, and b) The New York Times for its faulty reporting on WMD before and during the
invasion.
Five will get you 50 they would find the same sort of flaws found at CBS — “myopic
zeal,” poor judgment, rushed decisions, executives cowed by their superiors, failure to do
rudimentary fact-checking, and a “rigid and blind” defense when shown errors.
The Times did eventually report on its own flaws, although Steven Rendall of Fairness & Accuracy in
Reporting makes the widely noted but nonetheless telling point that the paper
failed to discipline anyone on a much more important story than CBS’s.
Moreover, Rendall suggested this morning on Democracy Now! that the disparity in the
measures taken by CBS and the Times, has to do with right-wing political pressure and “following
the script” about liberal media bias: CBS’s faulty report opposed the Bush regime (and could have
hurt Georgie Boy’s re-election chances), while the Times’s faulty WMD reporting supported the
Bush regime (and its rationale for war in Iraq). Therefore, CBS had to prove it took
seriously allegations of liberal bias, even though the inquiry found no conclusive evidence of that,
but the Times did not have to prove anything of the kind.
avoided mentioning Dan Rather. He was let off, and so was CBS
News President Andrew Heyward. But, in fact, Rather will be departing as CBS news anchor in a
couple of months. And speculation already has Heyward’s head about to roll.
