Fire Dan Rather

The Washington Post yesterday provided a "how we got here" account of Dan Rather's appalling promotion of forged documents as proof that George Bush did not fulfill his National Guard obligations. The article provides insight into the journalistic failures at CBS that prevented proper scrutiny of the documents. The article also demonstrates the arrogance of a news organization that still seems not to understand that its errors and subsequent denials have for good reason become the real story- eclipsing by far its allegations about the President having received special treatment thirty years ago.

The closing paragraphs of the article stated that, "As they continue their investigation into whether they were hoaxed, CBS officials have begun shifting their public focus from the memos themselves to their underlying allegations about the president." The Post quoted Josh Howard, a 60 Minutes executive as complaining that, "So much of this debate has focused on the documents, and no one has really challenged the story. It's been frustrating to us to see all this reduced to a debate over little 'th's."

That CBS executives view questions about their network's use of forged documents in a story attacking the President as little more than a debate over th's is a clear indication that they do not take journalism seriously. For this reason, viewers can not take CBS seriously. To begin to regain viewer trust under such circumstances requires that CBS fire both those responsible for failing to detect the forgeries and those who have insisted that the forgeries are not a story unto themselves. In other words, CBS must fire Dan Rather.