Monday, January 10, 2005
Covering one's butt: I must say I am really disappointed in the CBS report on the monumental screw-up on the Bush National Guard memo. They missed the point, it is obvious, and tried to find every reason but the real one for the problem.
My friend Kevin and his blog mates at Rathergate.com are much more updated on the whole scandal than I am. Kevin, I think spent most of his work day reading the CBS report, which was released today, and analyzing it.
While CBS doesn't want you to believe it, it is clear to me that some people over there wanted to either smear President Bush or influence the election. The piece ran a just before Election Day and with the polls running close the entire time, anything could have swayed it one way or the other.
But the report doesn't say that. It, vastly summarized of course, says one of the reasons for the error in judgement was the rush to get the story out first. Now, I am a journalist, and I know all about competition (My paper competes directly with one daily paper and a weekly, we also compete with several regional papers, not to mention the occasional radio and TV reporters when a big story breaks.) There is pressure to get the story before anyone else.
But there is equal pressure to get the story CORRECT, as well as first. It does not reporter any good to report a story first if it's wrong. No reporter can celebrate spanking his collegues if he is writing a long correction while everyone else is catching up.
The other problem is errors hurt all reporters' abilities to do their jobs, which is report the news. If our sources and our readers, listeners and viewers can't trust us, what is the point of the free press?
My friend Kevin and his blog mates at Rathergate.com are much more updated on the whole scandal than I am. Kevin, I think spent most of his work day reading the CBS report, which was released today, and analyzing it.
While CBS doesn't want you to believe it, it is clear to me that some people over there wanted to either smear President Bush or influence the election. The piece ran a just before Election Day and with the polls running close the entire time, anything could have swayed it one way or the other.
But the report doesn't say that. It, vastly summarized of course, says one of the reasons for the error in judgement was the rush to get the story out first. Now, I am a journalist, and I know all about competition (My paper competes directly with one daily paper and a weekly, we also compete with several regional papers, not to mention the occasional radio and TV reporters when a big story breaks.) There is pressure to get the story before anyone else.
But there is equal pressure to get the story CORRECT, as well as first. It does not reporter any good to report a story first if it's wrong. No reporter can celebrate spanking his collegues if he is writing a long correction while everyone else is catching up.
The other problem is errors hurt all reporters' abilities to do their jobs, which is report the news. If our sources and our readers, listeners and viewers can't trust us, what is the point of the free press?
