Reporting on Rather

The independent commission looking into Ra^therGate, headed by Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi, has released its report. It's 224 pages long, but still (page 1) "has not been able to conclude with absolute certainty whether the Killian documents are authentic or forgeries." But, the report affirms that CBS didn't authenticate the memos either (page 10):

Over the next few days, the examiners analyzed the two documents and had several conversations with both Mapes and Miller. Two of the examiners told the Panel that they informed Mapes and Miller that they had various concerns about the documents. Significantly, all four of the examiners told the Panel that they informed Mapes and Miller that they could not authenticate the documents, primarily because they were copies.

Nonetheless, it rejects CBS's principal defense that nothing about the memos was inconsistent with their being authentic (page 133): "While such an argument may have legitimacy in an advocacy proceeding, the Panel does not find it to be a sufficient standard for journalism, which should not stand on a "nothing to rule it out" foundation." This suggests, without any support, that the ethical standards for journalists are stricter than for lawyers.

The Panel interviewed Dan Rather, who stuck by his story (page 208):

Rather informed the Panel that he still believes the content of the documents is true because "the facts are right on the money,” and that no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic.

But the report blasts Rather for broadcasting an on-air retraction that plainly didn't reflect his conclusion (page 26):

Rather told the Panel that he delivered the apology and gave the WCBS interview in support of CBS News' decision that the time had come to stop defending the Segment and, indeed, to disown it. He told the Panel, however, that he did not fully agree with this decision and still believes that the content of the documents is accurate. The Panel is troubled by these conflicting statements.

Yet Rather apparently is being allowed to quit as anchor but remain part of the 60 Minutes team, which makes no sense.

Still, some heads have rolled:

Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush’s National Guard service.

The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with a “rigid and blind” defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report.

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. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated.

And CBS clearly is embarrassed:

“We deeply regret the disservice this flawed 60 Minutes Wednesday report did to the American public, which has a right to count on CBS News for fairness and accuracy,” said CBS President Leslie Moonves.

The panel said a "myopic zeal" to be the first news organization to broadcast a groundbreaking story about Mr. Bush’s National Guard service was a key factor in explaining why CBS News had produced a story that was neither fair nor accurate and did not meet the organization’s internal standards.

It's not exactly blood in the streets, but it's a start.

More:

SoxBlog's summary:

Here’s what I wanted to hear and I bet you did, too: Number 1, the documents were forgeries; and Number 2, The CBS apparatchiks involved in this sordid affair were animated by their black hearts’ desires to wound the President. Alas, the Report says neither.

But here’s what you do get. The Report lays out the factual case of what happened here better than anything else that I've read. And the factual case is incredibly damning to CBS News and the soon to be departing individuals involved in this endeavor. Yes, the Report doesn’t explicitly say that the documents were forgeries, but no sentient reader could make any other conclusion based on the evidence it offers.

So why doesn’t the Report explicitly make the Conclusion that its analysis so clearly demands? I don’t know, but there is a theory that makes sense: The Report repeatedly states that there’s no sound basis on which to conclude that the documents in question are authentic. Given the nature of the Panel’s enterprise and who’s footing the bill for it, that’s enough. Airing documents that can’t be authenticated is, journalistically speaking, in itself an unforgivable sin. Going so far as to offer a conclusion that the documents were forgeries would have been superfluous, an exercise in running up the score.

(Minor edits at 6:30 pm)

Still More:

Captain Ed points to Appendix 4 of the Report--which is damning. The Panel consulted a typography expert, who concluded:

[T]he Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter [as were authentic TANG memos]. . . [T]he Olympia manual typewriter available in the early 1970s did not have proportional spacing and therefore could not have produced the proportional spacing that appears in the Killian documents. In addition, . . . the superscript "th" key on the standard keyboard of the Olympia manual typewriter of that era produced a different "th" symbol (underlined and not elevated above the preceding number). . .

[T]he Killian documents were produced in a typestyle that closely resembles Times New Roman, a typestyle that . . . was not available on standard typewriters in the early 1970s. . . [In addition, based] on a comparison of the significant typographic features in the Killian documents against the available IBM Selectric proportional spacing typestyles, . . none of the IBM Selectric typestyles is a match. . . Therefore, . . . the Killian documents must have been produced on a computer.

Advantage: Powerline and Little Green Footballs, which reached the same conclusion months ago.

More and More:

The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last says the Panel report's a Whitewash:

[I]f the documents weren't forged and Mary Mapes acted with no political bias, then her firing would have been unjust and she really would be a scapegoat. But since there is abundant evidence that the documents were forgeries and that political attitudes were important in driving the story, the better conclusion is that the CBS Report is a whitewash.

More Cubed:

Lorie Byrd over at Polipundit provides excellent analysis:

I have heard at least a dozen times on cable television that the question to ask to determine whether CBS was motivated by politics is “if there was a similar story about John Kerry, would they have reported it?” Hello, is anyone paying attention? There is no reason to ask such a “what if” question because it was answered last summer. There WAS a similar story. It was brought forward by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and not only did CBS fail to run with that story, but most in the media ignored it completely, in spite of the fact that the book written by the Swifties was a huge bestseller.

I've previously observed that Rather conceded his bias, despite the fact that Kerry, and not Bush, made Vietnam era experience a campaign issue, when defending not investigating Kerry's past:

In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn't do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns. What's far more import is this: Do they have an exit strategy for Iraq? If so, what is it? How will they address the national deficit? And what are the chances their plans will work?

Rather's remarks were published in Broadcasting and Cable magazine (an industry trade publication) nine days before the 60 Minutes broadcast based on the forged memos.