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Cbs fires 4 staffers in wake of probe { January 11 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62690-2005Jan10.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62690-2005Jan10.html
CBS Fires 4 Staffers In Wake Of Probe
Panel Faults Rather For His Defense of Bush Guard Story
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 11, 2005; Page A01
CBS News's reporting of a fiercely disputed story on President Bush's National Guard service contained "considerable and fundamental deficiencies," an independent panel said yesterday, prompting the network to oust three top executives and Mary Mapes, Dan Rather's producer on the September piece.
The investigators faulted Rather, who has already announced plans to step down as anchor in March, for being overenthusiastic in pursuit of the story and overzealous in defending it after serious questions surfaced about whether the 30-year-old memos he was citing were bogus. CBS rushed the story on the air at the height of the presidential campaign despite having "failed miserably" to authenticate the documents and made false and misleading statements in defending the story afterward, said the panel led by former attorney general Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief executive Louis Boccardi.
"There's no question it's a black eye for CBS," network President Leslie Moonves, who hired the panel, said in an interview. "But in the steps we're taking, we've tried to move quickly. It's a blow, but it's not fatal. . . . We're getting rid of the people we think were to blame. Ninety-nine percent of the stories we do are accurate and solid."
The 224-page report, which blames the network's rush on a "myopic zeal" to be first with the Bush story, amounts to a stunning repudiation of the newsgathering process of CBS News and the midweek spinoff of one of its crown jewels, "60 Minutes." It also tarnishes the reputation of Rather, its anchor since 1981, who would have faced considerable pressure to step down had he not already agreed to relinquish the anchor chair, although he plans to continue as a correspondent for "60 Minutes." Rather, who was unavailable for comment yesterday, has apologized for his role in the story alleging that Bush received favorable treatment in the Texas Air National Guard.
An Absence of Bias
Following the exposure of serial fabrications in the last 18 months by Jayson Blair at the New York Times and Jack Kelley at USA Today, the report delivers yet another blow to the credibility of a major news organization, perhaps the highest-profile indictment to date given Rather's international fame and the fact that his target was the president.
The only glimmer of good news for CBS was the panel's finding that no one involved had a "political bias" against Bush, as conservatives have frequently charged in criticizing Rather. But the panel said many of CBS's sources, particularly former Texas National Guard official Bill Burkett, had "an anti-Bush political agenda."
Thornburgh told reporters that Rather, who had just returned from covering the Republican convention and a Florida hurricane, "played a somewhat minimal role in the actual production of the piece and . . . never even saw the segment before it aired." He said Rather was "more culpable" afterward, that he "exaggerated and somewhat misrepresented the findings of [a document] expert and mischaracterized some of the corroborating evidence."
The highest-ranking person let go was Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervises CBS's prime-time news shows. Also jettisoned were Josh Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday," and his deputy, Mary Murphy. Left untouched was CBS News President Andrew Heyward, who approved the Sept. 8 piece hours before it aired.
Moonves said Heyward gave explicit instructions to his deputies not to let the program's staff "stampede us in any way" but that the necessary vetting "wasn't done. Andrew's only fault was that he trusted his lieutenants to carry out his orders."
As for Rather, who had broken the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal with Mapes, Moonves said: "When Mary Mapes said these documents are true and her sources were accurate and unimpeachable, Dan took that at face value. He trusted Mary."
Mapes said in a statement that she is "shocked by the vitriolic scapegoating in Les Moonves's statement" and "concerned that his actions are motivated by corporate and political considerations -- ratings rather than journalism." She said photocopied documents are often a basis for verifying stories and that she was honest with the panel.
'A Monster Story'
Bob Zelnick, a former ABC News correspondent who chairs Boston University's journalism department, said Rather "bears substantial responsibility" because "this was a monster story in the heat of a presidential campaign and called into question the president's service to his country. . . . It's a terrible black eye for CBS and in a larger sense for journalism."
New York media analyst Andrew Tyndall said that Rather "puts his name to a discredited report for '60 Minutes' and his reward, after leaving his job as 'CBS Evening News' anchor, is to keep his job as a correspondent for '60 Minutes.' " He also said Heyward's management style should have been addressed.
"Fortunately, it was one story in one shop," said CBS News Vice President Linda Mason, who has been named to a newly created post, recommended by the report, to oversee broadcast standards. "All of CBS News was not indicted by this."
Faulty Follow-Up
The report not only criticized the reporting and approval process for the story but the news division's "strident defense" of the "60 Minutes" piece for 10 days after the documents came under fire without "any adequate probing whether any of the questions raised had merit." Once The Washington Post, ABC News and some Internet bloggers challenged the documents, the panel said, CBS should not have allowed many of the same people involved in reporting the flawed story to handle the follow-up pieces on the "CBS Evening News," some of which were "misleading." Moonves said he was "shocked" to learn that Mapes was allowed to do the follow-up reporting.
"Not only did CBS circle the wagons, they let people who were driving the wagons do the circling," said Deborah Potter, a former CBS correspondent who runs the journalistic training center NewsLab.
The investigators said they were "troubled" by "conflicting statements" in which Rather apologized on Sept. 20 because he felt it was time to disown the story, but that he did not fully agree with the decision and still believes the content of the documents is accurate.
The panel said it could not definitively prove that the early 1970s memos said to have been written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's late squadron commander in the Texas Air National Guard, were forgeries. But it said there had been a "failure" by CBS to authenticate any of the documents and that "60 Minutes" had aired the "false" statement that one of the document experts the program consulted, Marcel Matley, had verified the documents when all he did was authenticate one signature on one document. All four examiners hired by CBS told the panel they had informed Mapes they could not authenticate the documents, primarily because they were copies. Two of them also raised red flags about the memos.
CBS was "misleading" in reporting that Robert Strong, a former Texas Guard official, had vouched for the documents because he had resigned from the unit two months before the date of the earliest Killian memo and had no firsthand knowledge.
Mapes never interviewed the person who her source, Bill Burkett, said had given him the suspect memos -- Burkett later changed his story about who it was -- and never established Rather's claim that the papers "were taken from Colonel Killian's personal files." The panel was particularly critical of Mapes on this point, saying Burkett had already told conflicting stories about getting them anonymously in the mail or obtaining them from a chief warrant officer.
The report said that Killian's 86-year-old former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, who was interviewed by Rather, "stated that she did not have any personal knowledge about the content of the Killian documents." Knox said she answered Rather's questions -- by saying she didn't type the documents but that they reflected Killian's beliefs -- "on the assumption that the content was accurate."
CBS News also made "inaccurate press statements" that the then-secret source of the documents was "unimpeachable" and that numerous experts had vouched for their authenticity, the panel found.
'Errors of Credulity'
Moonves said in a statement that Rather "asked the right questions initially, but then made the same errors of credulity and over-enthusiasm that beset many of his colleagues. . . . He defended the story overzealously afterward. . . . The panel has found that his unwillingness to consider that CBS News and his colleagues were in the wrong was a mistake." Since Rather is giving up the anchor chair, however, Moonves said any further action "would not be appropriate."
Moonves reserved his harshest words for Mapes, saying that "her basic reporting was faulty and her responses when questioned led others who trusted her down the wrong road."
The investigators said Mapes's account was at odds with those of others in several respects:
• She said that Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, former commander of Bush's National Guard unit, had confirmed the content of the documents over the phone. Hodges recalled saying only that he and Killian had discussed the fact that Bush had missed a flight physical and wanted to transfer his training to Alabama.
• Mapes said she briefed CBS management on Burkett's controversial background, including his anti-Bush sentiments. But network executives told the panel that they do not recall Mapes mentioning Burkett's name and that she used words like "solid," "without bias" and "credible" to describe her source.
• Mapes said that before calling Joe Lockhart, then a senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, to ask him to speak with Burkett, she cleared the idea with Howard, "60 Minutes Wednesday's" executive producer. But Howard said he warned her such a call would be inappropriate. The report described the phone call as "a clear conflict of interest" that "created the appearance of a political bias" at CBS.
In early August, Mapes told Howard by e-mail that "many many reporters from various print outlets (Harpers, Vanity Fair, NY Times mag, etc) all chasing the Bush National Guard stuff again. . . . There is a strong general feeling that this time, there is blood in the water." Michael Smith, a consultant hired by Mapes, told her by e-mail that if Burkett "shows us some leg," he would talk to Burkett about a book deal or " 'taking care of him' with money." Mapes later asked CBS management if the network could pay Burkett a consulting fee and was told no.
• Mapes said she asked for more time on the story, but West, Howard and Murphy all said she warned management that CBS would lose the scoop if it did not air on Sept. 8.
Two days after the broadcast, Howard suggested that CBS admit it may have been the victim of a hoax. But the network refused to apologize for another 10 days, when Howard recalled telling his staff: "Your management failed you. I failed you."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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