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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:22
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Here is the latest from the NYTimes. Not reported below are two points. Mapes asked higher-ups whether she should contact Kerry's campaign as requested by Burkett. She was told no. She did it anyway.
Another point, falsifying government documents and/or distributing false goverment documents for the purpose of harming someone is a felony in Texas. It looks like both Burkett and Mapes face criminal liability. It will be interesting to see whether they soon hire criminal attorneys.
"CBS announced yesterday that Dick Thornburgh, a former attorney general, and Louis D. Boccardi, a former top executive of The Associated Press, would investigate the journalistic breakdowns that led to the broadcast of a flawed "60 Minutes" report about President Bush's National Guard service.
While the network characterized the two men as constituting an independent panel, Mr. Thornburgh's appointment upset Dan Rather, the anchor who broadcast the report and initially vouched for documents at its heart, according to four colleagues and associates.
Mr. Rather considers Mr. Thornburgh a confounding choice in part because he served two Republican presidents, Mr. Bush's father, and Richard M. Nixon, with whom Mr. Rather publicly clashed, the colleagues and associates said.
Mr. Thornburgh also has his own rocky history with CBS. In 1989, as attorney general, he drew the ire of CBS News and other news media organizations when the Justice Department was reportedly considering subpoenas for the telephone records of a CBS News correspondent in an investigation of leaks about an inquiry about a congressman's office. A spokeswoman for CBS News, Sandra Genelius, described Mr. Thornburgh and Mr. Boccardi as having "uncommon integrity and ability." But Ms. Genelius declined to elaborate on the reasoning of two CBS officials primarily responsible for naming the panel, Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, and Leslie Moonves, chairman of CBS Television and co-president of the CBS parent, Viacom.
Mr. Boccardi, who worked for 36 years at The A.P. before retiring last year, was one of three outsiders who served last year on a committee with reporters and editors of The New York Times that investigated the repeated fabrications of a former reporter, Jayson Blair. Mr. Thornburgh, an ex- governor of Pennsylvania, was appointed in 2002 to investigate the WorldCom fraud.
Mr. Rather declined to comment on the appointments. But his spokeswoman, Kim Akhtar, said, "Mr. Rather fully intends to cooperate."
Mr. Boccardi said he and Mr. Thornburgh had been assured that they would have the full cooperation of the news division in examining basic questions like how this report was handled and "what safeguards were there to prevent what happened and why they didn't work.''
Mr. Boccardi added that he and Mr. Thornburgh would submit their report directly to Mr. Heyward and Mr. Moonves. Mr. Boccardi said among his preconditions for taking the post was that the report also be made public, an assurance CBS has given.
Through an aide, Mr. Thornburgh declined an interview request.
One important line of inquiry is widely expected to be the role of Mary Mapes, the lead producer of the report. Ms. Mapes arranged the receiving of the documents, which were said to be from the personal files of Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, Mr. Bush's commander in the Texas Air National Guard. The papers appeared to be something of a bombshell, reportedly documenting how Colonel Killian, who died 20 years ago, had felt pressure to "sugarcoat" Mr. Bush's record. On Monday, CBS News said that Bill Burkett, a former officer in the Texas National Guard who gave the documents to Ms. Mapes, had misled producers about how he had obtained them.
The panel is also widely expected to pursue what led Ms. Mapes to put Mr. Burkett in touch with a top aide to Senator John Kerry before the report was broadcast, on Sept. 8.
In an interview on Monday, Mr. Rather said that on learning that Ms. Mapes had obtained the documents, he called Mr. Heyward.
"This is not verbatim," Mr. Rather recalled. "But I said: 'Andrew, if true, it's breakthrough stuff. But I need to do something unusual. It may even be unique. I have to ask you to oversee, in a hands-on way, the handling of this story, because this is potentially the kind of thing that will cause great controversy.'
"He got it. He immediately agreed.''
Ms. Genelius declined to comment on Mr. Rather's account, saying only, "Andrew is very much looking forward to discussing the roles played by everyone in the process."
Officials at CBS News said Mr. Heyward saw the report before it was broadcast. Several people at the network also said that a top deputy, Betsy West, closely supervised the production from early on and that it had a rigorous review.
Ms. West declined comment, and Ms. Mapes did not return a call.
Lawyers also questioned the producers involved and screened the report the day it was broadcast. Officials have acknowledged in the last week that the editorial process was faster than usual. The report ran less than a week after Ms. Mapes obtained the documents.
Josh Howard, executive producer of the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes," has said in recent days that he did not know the source of the documents on Sept. 8 but that Ms. Mapes had satisfied him that any questions about the documents' authenticity had been answered. "The producer was telling us that questions were raised and then they were answered," Mr. Howard said in an interview on Sunday."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/p...print&position=
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21-09-2004 21:10
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