After weeks of antagonistic scrutiny, CBS and Dan Rather have both admitted culpability in the falsified National Guard memo scandal, and have revealed that it was in fact Bill Burkett who was the source of these same documents. Burkett has reputedly told CBS that he "deliberately misled" the network... and this interview will appear on tonight's(Monday) CBS Evening News.
Furthermore, the president of CBS News remarked on the situation with the following: "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report..."
Dan Rather added: "I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers....that, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where -- if I knew then what I know now -- I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question." REALLY NOW.... not that you or any reporter would willingly admit to fudging the facts to suit your agenda or to get a scoop.
It's sort of funny that the lessons we learned as children, about just admitting when we made mistakes when they happen, don't seem to carry over into the professional, adult world, now do they? I mean, we are willing to forgive our public figures and politicians when they have admitted their own mistakes when confronted with them, and generally, we look upon such admissions favorably. However, CBS dropped the ball badly this time, and it has definitely not only tarnished one of the few news magazines that seemed to always fight the good fight, but it has cast an ugly shadow on network news as a whole.