Longstanding Journalistic Ethics

In an unsurprising turn of events CBS is standing by its Texas Air National Guard story and the people who produced it. So it appears Dan Rather is not going to go quietly. It would also appear that arrogance wins out. CBS released its statement yesterday.

The 60 MINUTES Wednesday broadcast reported that it obtained six documents from the personal files of Lt. Col. Killian, four of which were used in the broadcast. In accordance with longstanding journalistic ethics, CBS News is not prepared to reveal its confidential sources or the method by which 60 MINUTES Wednesday received the documents.

In a spasm of "longstanding journalistic ethics" CBS concludes.

The editorial content of the report was not based solely on the physical documents, but on numerous credible sources who support what the documents said.

Through the frenzied debate of the past week, the basic content of the 60 MINUTES Wednesday report - that President Bush received preferential treatment to gain entrance to the Texas Air National Guard and that he may not have fulfilled all of the requirements -- has not been substantially challenged.

I ponder what those ethics might be. Perhaps CBS is standing on precedent.

Dateline's report on Nov. 17 featured 14 min. of balanced debate, capped by 57 seconds of crash footage that explosively showed how the gas tanks of certain old GM trucks could catch fire in a sideways collision.

Following a tip, GM hired detectives, searched 22 junkyards for 18 hours, and found evidence to debunk almost every aspect of the crash sequence. Last week, in a devastating press conference, GM showed that the conflagration was rigged, its causes misattributed, its severity overstated and other facts distorted. Two crucial errors: NBC said the truck's gas tank had ruptured, yet an X ray showed it hadn't; NBC consultants set off explosive miniature rockets beneath the truck split seconds before the crash -- yet no one told the viewers.

In that ground breaking broadcast, NBC led the way to new ethical heights with its expose on GM trucks with side saddle gas tanks. That means the "longstanding journalistic ethics" go back at least as early as 1992. In fact, CBS itself has demonstrated the same kind of high minded reporting in the past.

Ben Kelley was also an on-camera expert in a CBS 60 Minutes segment in which a truck's wheel rims were filed down — again, viewers were in the dark — to make the phony case that they were prone to explode while the tires were being filled with air. And Kelley appeared in another 60 Minutes piece that implied a Jeep was prone to flip over during "fairly gentle" turns. Guess what? Heavy weights had been hidden in the Jeep's wheel wells to make it more likely to flip.

Unlike NBC whose President Michael Gartner resigned over the Dateline debacle, CBS is standing firm. What else can they do? If they want to win this election they need to take this discussion to a new level: They will preen in their First Amendment armor. The hope will be that Bush and the evil Republicans can be portrayed as stomping on the constitution and the freedom of the press for the sake of an election. Dan Rather and CBS are arrogant enough to try it, and the Kerry-Edwards people, from the top down, are dumb enough to be part of it. What a fun campaign season! What next?