Heads Roll At CBS over unsubstantiated %$%$%$%$ Guard Story

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Four CBS Employees Ousted for 'Memogate'

Monday, January 10, 2005

By Catherine Donaldson-Evans



NEW YORK — Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been let go for the parts they played in preparing the controversial "60 Minutes Wednesday" election-season story about President %$%$%$%$'s National Guard service, CBS announced Monday.

Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; "60 Minutes Wednesday" Executive Producer Josh Howard and Howard's deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy, according to CBS. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes (search), was terminated, the network said.

Longtime CBS News anchor Dan Rather (search), who was the correspondent on the September segment, already announced his departure as anchor of "CBS Evening News" late last year. His final show will be in March.

The CBS staffer oustings came with the release of the final report by an independent investigation panel assigned to look into what happened with the CBS %$%$%$%$ National Guard story (search) — which alleged that the president had shirked some of his guard duties and received special treatment during his Vietnam War-era service.

The CBS report turned out to be based largely on forged memos, though there has been no evidence the network knew the documents were falsified.

To read the CBS report, click here (pdf).

The panel stopped short of saying the CBS story arose out of any political bias on the part of the network or its news coverage.

Instead, the report concluded that the problematic National Guard segment aired because of a "myopic zeal" on the part of CBS to break the story first.

After the CBS segment aired, %$%$%$%$'s National Guard service became a hot campaign issue during the contentious presidential race for the White House between him and Massachusetts Sen. John %$%$%$%$%$.

The %$%$%$%$ camp defended the president's service to his country in the National Guard and released some documents of its own in an effort to prove that the allegations and questions about whether he fulfilled his duties were false.

After the story and ensuing fallout, questions have remained about whether there was any truth to any of the allegations raised about %$%$%$%$'s military service in spite of the fact that the CBS piece hinged on doctored memos. There were independent reports circulating that backed up the CBS segment's assertions, but they haven't been proven.

In its report, the panel concluded that the network news organization failed to follow basic journalistic principles in preparing, reporting and following the %$%$%$%$ piece.

CBS News also made matters worse by its "rigid and blind" defense of the "60 Minutes Wednesday" segment, the panel reported.

CBS thought it had an important scoop with the National Guard story, reporting that %$%$%$%$ had received preferential treatment to get into the Guard and stay in the United States during the Vietnam War, and had failed to satisfy the requirements of his service.

But critics immediately questioned the story, saying a document purportedly written by %$%$%$%$'s late squadron leader appeared to be a fake.

Rather and CBS initially defended the piece. Rather later apologized on Sept. 20 before CBS appointed the investigative panel.

"We made a mistake in judgment," Rather said, "and for that I am sorry."

The panel found that the news organization should have set the record straight earlier.

"The panel finds that once serious questions were raised, the defense of the segment became more rigid and emphatic, and that virtually no attempt was made to determine whether the questions raised had merit," the report concluded.

CBS News President Andrew Heyward (search) on Sept. 10 ordered West, one of the ousted executives, to investigate and review the opinions of document experts who had seen the disputed memos and unnamed sources that formed the basis for the %$%$%$%$ National Guard story.

That investigation never happened, the panel's report said.

"Had this directive been followed promptly, the panel does not believe that '60 Minutes Wednesday' would have publicly defended the segment for another 10 days," the report said.

Criticism has swirled about how Rather was handled in the so-called "Memogate" scandal. Rather announced his March resignation on "CBS Evening News" on Nov. 23, saying he was planning to retire soon anyway. He said he was not stepping down over the National Guard story controversy.

“The mistake of Dan Rather is that he said, ‘I don’t make mistakes,’” Jeff Jarvis, who runs the Weblog site Buzzmachine.com, told FOX News on Monday.

“There was a lot of buck-passing here,” Jarvis told FOX.

The panel made a number of recommendations for changes, according to CBS, including:

— Appoint a "senior standards and practices" executive who would report directly to the president of CBS News and would review all investigative reporting, use of confidential sources and authentication of documents. Other staffers could go to the new executive confidentially with any concerns they might have about a story.

— Foster an atmosphere in which competitive pressure is not allowed to prompt airing of reports before all investigation and vetting is done.

— Allow senior management to know the names of confidential sources as well as all relevant background about the person needed to make news judgments.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.