Quoth Dan Rather: "If
those documents are forgeries, I want to be the one to break the
story." Too late, Dan.
The documents referred to were supposedly written by Colonel
Jerry Killian, one of President Bush's National Guard commanders.
On September 8, in a teaser for the "60 Minutes" episode to air
that night, Rather said, "CBS News has exclusive information,
including documents ... (that) indicate Mr. Bush may have received
preferential treatment in the Guard after not fulfilling his commitments."
"60 Minutes" aired at 8 PM Eastern Time. Next morning major papers
like the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today picked
up the CBS story. They didn't comment on the authenticity of the
documents, probably because of tight deadlines.
Out on the Net, though, checking had started before "60 Minutes"
had left the air. In the world of Weblogs (called blogs) angry
partisans shouted doubts. Volunteer experts surfaced, sharing
knowledge and opinions and linking to each other.
September 9: The Powerline Blog, run by Scott Johnson, published
a full critique of the documents, questioning all kinds of things
from the fonts used to the military jargon and abbreviations.
September 10: The major media got in the game. Reporters uncovered
sources that supported the bloggers' analysis. On the "Evening
News" that night Rather defended the documents' authenticity.
He said many critics were "partisan political operatives."
September 13: USA Today published its analysis, based on the
work of six reporters and the forensic experts they consulted.
They concluded that the documents are probably forgeries. By then,
CBS was circling the wagons.
CBS president Andrew Heyward said that CBS would "redouble" its
efforts to authenticate the memos. It was all pretty much down
hill from there.
September 20: Rather emailed reporters and apologized for a "mistake
in judgment."
That evening, Rather interviewed his source, Bill Burkett, on
the air. He turns out to be a fellow who is known as a bit of
a nut and a rabid hater of George Bush. Burkett admitted that
he misled CBS reporters. Rather apologized to his viewers.
Once it turned out that the documents were forgeries, CBS responded
like many large organizations. They commissioned a blue-ribbon
panel to review their journalistic ethics. That was predictable,
and so was the general media response.
It was typified by Diane Sawyer. Appearing on the Larry King
show, she lamented that the Rather story would taint all journalists.
She said that it showed the importance of checking every fact
to make sure it was correct.
Nonsense. The issue here is not fact-checking. It's about letting
bias overwhelm journalistic ethics. Rather and the story's producer,
Mary Mapes could have taken the time to vet the documents properly.
They didn't. Why?
Answer: because they wanted to run the story so badly that they
were willing to sacrifice professional standards. Mapes, in fact,
has admitted that she wanted to run a story about George Bush's
preferential treatment in the National Guard for five years.
She couldn't find conclusive proof in all that time. Evidently
she finally decided that any proof would do. So "60 Minutes" did
a fact checking job that would shame a high school newspaper.
And they got caught.
Which brings us to the bloggers who are now slamming each other
with digital high-fives and proclaiming the rise of the blog as
a great political power. That's nonsense, too.
There are about four million blogs out there. Most of them publish
nothing. The rest mostly publish personal items, rants, and hyper-partisan
nonsense.
Blogs are a force because reporters, editors and producers of
the major media check them out. Millions of experts and millions
of partisans are on the Net and they can uncover stories and check
facts more quickly and thoroughly than the best-staffed newsroom.
Most of the time, though, they don't
To bring these folks together the way it worked with the Rather
documents, an issue has to have emotional weight for a lot of
folks. Somebody has to get angry or excited and start the links
rolling. Others have to climb on the bandwagon.
Most of the time we're right to be skeptical about what shows
up on the blogs. But when they engage lots of folks, the blogs
act like a giant distributed intelligence, checking facts and
each other. The Net may make it easier and faster, but it's really
nothing new.
Here's what's new, though. Before now, most of us would put far
more trust in a story that ran on CBS, the network of Edward R.
Murrow and Walter Cronkite, than we would in something posted
on the Net. Now, we're going to be more skeptical. That's a story
Dan Rather might want to break.
Top of page
If you haven't
checked out what the Netheads call the "blogosphere," now might
be a good time. Let's start with some of the blogs that were prominent
in the Dan Rather Docu-Gate Affair.
The most prominent player was Scott Johnson's Powerline
Blog.
Angry conservatives like those on The
Free Republic helped get the ball rolling.
Charles Johnson is a blogger with expertise in typography. He
proved that Microsoft Word with its default settings would produce
a document like the ones CBS said were created in the early seventies.
His blog is LittleGreenFootballs.
Jim Forbes is an expert on
IBM Selectrics.
Now, for some sites (and blogs) that study blogs and comment
on them.
To get an idea why blogs can produce amazing results quickly
when the issue is right, I suggest reading "The
Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How
Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations"
by James Surowiecki. Blogs can replicate the best results that
come from a large, diverse group.
To see a version of this distributed intelligence working online,
check out Wikipedia.
It's a cooperative encyclopedia that's one of my favorite information
sources, put together entirely from the contributions of volunteers.
Finally, to get an idea how far this latest behavior by Gunga
Dan Rather and Company is from the CBS News of the past, check
out Bob Edward's excellent book, "Edward
R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism." Or try Walter
Cronkite's autobiography, "A
Reporter's Life."
28 September 2004
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