The CBS Forged Memo Report

CBS still doesn’t get it. The much anticipated Forged Memo report has been released, finally, by Viacom’s internal investigators. The report is a whitewash. While they did throw a couple of executive producers to the wolves, they totally ignored the real kernel, nub, heart and soul of what happened. Instead, they twisted and spun the report to avoid the most important thing that caused Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and all the others to air forged memos in the first place. This report covered up the real story, --hushed it up, --and papered it over.

The events that occurred are quite simple: Rather, Mapes and 90% of all CBS News associates are left-wing, Bush-hating liberals. They are continually looking for anything which may tend to discredit the President. They were fed a very inflammatory, damning set of memos which purported to be authentic but were, in fact, crude forgeries. Rather and Mapes wanted to believe the content of these memos so much they were willing ignore mountains of evidence which told them the memos were fake, including the opinions of several of the document experts they hired to look at them. They had such an active animus against George W Bush, they were willing to totally set aside any hint of journalistic ethics they may once have had, and they simply ran with a story that they knew, or they should have known was a fraud.

The report goes to great lengths to lead us in every direction and to every conclusion, in its search for an explanation for this lapse in journalism, except to the real and obvious one: Rather hates Bush. That is what blinded him and allowed him to ignore all the red flags, ranging from the experts’ opinions, to the checkered background of the source of these memos. He just threw caution to the wind. No other explanation makes any sense at all.

One other factor is also very important. CBS, Rather and all of his main-stream media colleagues, in all of their arrogance, have most certainly misunderestimated the power of the blogosphere. They have been accustomed to being the only source of mass information for many years. They simply weren’t prepared for the possibility that Web sites such as Little Green Footballs, and others would uncover these forgeries within minutes of their publication. They didn’t understand the reach and power these Blogs have at all. This episode, more than any other in recent history, shows the decline of the main stream media and the rise of the blogosphere. Hugh Hewitt’s new book, Blog, points this out in great detail. Dan Rather and his ilk can no longer rely on the power of their “one source, one-way” media empires. There will always be a hoard of independent media critics in the blogosphere checking and re-checking everything they say. They just can no longer get away with false and biased reporting. No wonder so many of them have retired. It’s no longer fun for them.

Will this change the fundamental nature of the establishment press? No, they will remain virulently left wing, and anti-Bush. But maybe they will be at least a little more circumspect about letting us all see their true colors. We can all hope so.