{"id":990,"date":"2005-01-11T09:41:19","date_gmt":"2005-01-11T17:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/01\/following_the_rightwing_script\/"},"modified":"2005-01-11T09:41:19","modified_gmt":"2005-01-11T17:41:19","slug":"following_the_rightwing_script","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/01\/following_the_rightwing_script.html","title":{"rendered":"FOLLOWING THE RIGHT-WING SCRIPT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the inquiry into CBS’s faulty reporting on Georgie Boy’s National Guard service has
\nresulted in the dismissal of four top news
\nexecutives<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>, the Bush regime suddenly values the principle of accountability.
\nWhite House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, without the slightest irony, “CBS has taken
\nsteps to hold people accountable, and we appreciate those steps.”
\n

<\/P>
\n

Somebody should extend the inquiry. The independent panel — Louis Boccardi and Dick
\nThornburgh — ought to be asked to take a look into a) the Bush regime itself for its rush to war in
\nIraq, and b) The New York Times for its faulty reporting on WMD before and during the
\ninvasion.<\/P>
\n

Five will get you 50 they would find the same sort of flaws found at CBS — “myopic
\nzeal,” poor judgment, rushed decisions, executives cowed by their superiors, failure to do
\nrudimentary fact-checking, and a “rigid and blind” defense when shown errors.<\/P>
\n

The Times did eventually report on its own flaws, although Steven Rendall of Fairness & Accuracy in
\nReporting<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> makes the widely noted but nonetheless telling point that the paper
\nfailed to discipline anyone on a much more important story than CBS’s.<\/P>
\n

Moreover, Rendall suggested this morning on Democracy Now!<\/B><\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/A> that the disparity in the
\nmeasures taken by CBS and the Times, has to do with right-wing political pressure and “following
\nthe script” about liberal media bias: CBS’s faulty report opposed the Bush regime (and could have
\nhurt Georgie Boy’s re-election chances), while the Times’s faulty WMD reporting supported the
\nBush regime (and its rationale for war in Iraq). Therefore, CBS had to prove it took
\nseriously allegations of liberal bias, even though the inquiry found no conclusive evidence of that,
\nbut the Times did not have to prove anything of the kind.<\/P>Postscript:<\/B> Yes, I’ve
\navoided mentioning Dan Rather. He was let off<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>, and so was CBS
\nNews President Andrew Heyward. But, in fact, Rather will be departing as CBS news anchor in a
\ncouple of months. And speculation already has Heyward’s head about to roll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-fY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}