The Blog Strikes Back

In a lengthy post on Power Line, Hindrocket dissects the Columbia Journalism Review article by Corey Pein discussing 60 Minutes use of the fraudulent Bush TANG documents.  The decision?  A knockout in 2nd round.  Mr. Pein never knew what hit him.

For those interested in the story the entire post is worth reading.  Hindrocket summarizes the problems with the story succinctly and precisely, and shows that Pein's presentation is seriously flawed.  For instance, Pein attempts to bolster the credibility of Bill Burkett thus:

[M]any suppositions about Burkett are based on standards that were not applied evenly across the board. In November and December the first entry for “Bill Burkett” in Google, the most popular reference tool of the twenty-first century, was on a blog called Fried Man. It classifies Burkett as a member of the “loony left,” based on his Web posts. In these, Burkett says corporations will strip Iraq, obliquely compares Bush to Napoleon and “Adolf,” and calls for the defense of constitutional principles. These supposedly damning rants, alluded to in USA Today, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, are not really any loonier than an essay in Harper’s or a conversation at a Democratic party gathering during the campaign.

So comparing Bush to Hitler is mainstream Democratic Party thought?  They're in more trouble than they think.  Power Line answers with surgical precision, slicing like Ron Popeil wielding a ginsu:

CBS ostensibly "worked" on the National Guard story for years. They took fake documents from a notoriously unstable source who had no first-hand knowledge of President Bush's National Guard career, and who could not account for where he got them. On their face, the documents looked nothing like authentic National Guard memos of the 1970s that were in CBS's possession, but CBS asked no questions. CBS carried out no investigation to determine whether the memos were genuine, and made a point of not talking to people who were ostensibly quoted in the memos to determine whether the documents were accurate. They put the documents before the American public in the heat of an election campaign, and closely coordinated their story with a Democratic National Committee advertising campaign which dovetailed perfectly with the fake documents, and which began the morning after their broadcast. When questioned about the documents' apparent fraudulence, they stonewalled, and Dan Rather guaranteed the American people that the documents were authentic, because they came from an unimpeachable source.

Ouch.  That'll leave a mark.

For future reference, to any other writer who attempts to prop up CBS in this matter, it would be best to have other documentary evidence of the 'truth' of the memos content, other than the memos themselves, if you wish to refer to them as 'fake but accurate'.  This admonishment would include CBS itself, which still has not released the report on the matter.

More at Wizbang and Little Green Footballs.   At the latter site Charles Johnson gives the links to his Microsoft Word default matches for the memos.  And Roger Simon states of the Pein article "[w]hat's amazing to me is how little fact-checking is done by the Columbia Journalism Review, if this article is any indication. Somewhat less amazing, but equally pathetic is that they solicit subscriptions at the bottom. As if."

UPDATE: Ace of Spades adds to the discussion, noting the following in a post from The Wardrobe Door.

So what about Pein himself? Where do you think his politics fall? Well it turns out he was an editorial intern for the liberal magazine The American Prospect [an avowedly liberal advocacy magazine; the blogger quotes the mag's mission statement as evidence for its admitted liberal activism-- ed.]

Pein was also an assistant editor for Environmental Practice, a professional journal for the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP). Anybody want to argue that Environmental Practice is a pro-Bush publication or even neutral?

I've had the misfortune to read the moronic socialist drivel of Robert Kuttner on the pages of the Boston Globe.  Kuttner is, of course, the co-editor of The American Prospect - here's his latest column on social security.  After reading it you know how far out on the port gunwhale he sits.  And Pein interned there!

UPDATE: Corey Pein responds in a letter to PoynterOnline.  Power Line only took the time and effort to speak to one of the sections (scroll down), regarding Buck Staudt's involvement (or lack of it).  Early in the letter, however, there is another section that I think merits a look.

Jonathan Last in the Weekly Standard provides an honest critique of my piece. But when he complains that I construct an "insurmountable" standard of proof, I must disagree. Last writes, as others have, that I "could not be persuaded the memos were forged." This is not the case. I began my reporting with the presumption that the documents were forged. Only after weeks of research and reporting did I reach my conclusion — not that the memos are real, but that there is no definitive evidence in the blogs or in the press that supports the conventional wisdom that they are forged. (my emphasis)  We simply don't know from the incomplete evidence that’s before us.

Is this the new standard for journalists, that you may publish whatever story you encounter, provided that critics can't, to your satisfaction, prove your material false?  Isn't it incumbent on you, as a journalist, to verify the accuracy of supporting documents before moving with a story?  Is Mr. Pein suggesting that after reading newspaper articles, even on the news page, we should conclude "Well, that's just what the writer thinks?"  If so, what purpose do news organizations really serve, if they traffic in unsubstantiated rumor?

If Mr. Pein is attempting to further undermine the credibility of journalists he's  at least accomplishing that task.

Comments

[JohninIowa]

I think I should work up some documents related to Whitewater. They would be 'fake but accurate', yet I have a feeling they would receive zero attention by CBS.