Text 2382, 166 rader
Skriven 2004-09-18 20:03:37 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: Rather's Producer under gun
===================================
As expected, Dan Rather's producer is likely to take the hit for forged
document story on Sixty Minutes.




CBS 'Rathergate' Producer Under Pressure from Network
By Jeff Gannon

Talon News (Sept. 17) - Talon News sources inside CBS have indicated that the
producer of the '60 Minutes' story that used what appear to be forged documents
to charge that President George W. Bush received preferential treatment during
his service with the Texas Air National Guard 30 years ago is under pressure
from the network. Mary Mapes, a Dallas-based producer, obtained the documents
from a source that she and the network refuse to reveal, even though the
documents themselves have been widely discredited.

   Doubts about the authenticity of the documents have put the network and its
anchor Dan Rather at the center of a controversy that continues to grow. After
a series of defensive statements about the documents, the network has finally
admitted there might be a problem with them.

   CBS is maintaining that the substance of its story is unchallenged
regardless of the provenance of the documents.

   Rather made that point during the Wednesday broadcast of the television news
magazine, saying, "Those who have criticized aspects of our story have never
criticized the major thrust of our report."

   But Rather did acknowledge that documents might yet prove to be fraudulent.

   "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break
that story," Rather added. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front
and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'"

   Bob Schieffer, CBS's chief Washington correspondent, was quoted in the
Washington Post saying, "I think this is very, very serious. He added, "When
Dan tells me these documents are not forgeries, I believe him. But somehow
we've got to find a way to show people these documents are not forgeries."

   Schieffer was selected to moderate one of this year's presidential debates.
Despite White House denials that the CBS veteran might be replaced in the wake
of a scandal, some have suggested making the change to ensure fairness.

   CBS News President Andrew Heyward issued a tepid statement Wednesday in
defense of their investigative work.

   He said, "I feel that we did a tremendous amount of reporting before the
story went on the air or we wouldn't have put it on the air."

   He did leave open the possibility that the documents might be forgeries,
saying, "There's such a ferocious debate about these documents...we want to get
to the bottom of these unresolved issues."

   Rather took a shot at CBS's "journalistic competitors," when he suggested,
"Instead of asking President Bush and his staff questions about what is true
and not true about the president's military service, they ask me questions:
'How do you know this and that about the documents?'"

   But rival news services have kept the focus on the documents, leaving the
network isolated in its belief in the authenticity of them. CBS's stonewalling
has only exacerbated the network's problems and demoralized some of its
employees.

   Some CBS employees are amused at Rather's predicament.

   One told Talon News, "Sooner of later something like this was going to
happen. When you see how hard they've been working this National Guard story,
you know they weren't going to come up empty-handed one way or another."

   But because Rather is CBS's franchise player with a contract that extends
through 2006, fallout from any scandal is likely to fall on someone else at the
network. An insider tells Talon News that Mapes is the most likely candidate.
She has been working on this story for five years and obtained the documents
that are now in dispute.

   While the network has refused to reveal its source, the documents appear to
have been faxed to CBS from a Kinko's in Abilene, TX. Abilene is located in
Taylor County, where Rather made a speech at the fundraiser previously
mentioned.

   That location points to retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett as
the source of the documents. His Baird, Texas ranch is about 21 miles from the
copy shop at which the fax transmission took place. Burkett, a bitter critic of
Bush makes the same charges that have been parroted by CBS and the DNC.

   In an August 25, 2004 posting to www.onlinejournal.com,  Burkett wrote, "I
know from your files that we have now reassembled, the fact that you did not
fulfill your oath."

   Burkett isn't specific in what he meant by "reassembled," but the only files
that have surfaced are the ones at the center of the controversy about
forgeries.

   In the years that CBS producer Mary Mapes has been pursuing this story, she
never contacted Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's secretary, Marian Carr Knox, until
after her existence was revealed by the Drudge Report. On 60 Minutes on
Wednesday, Knox said that the documents were forgeries, but the content was
accurate.

   Mapes interviewed Killian's widow Marjorie Connell and his son Gary. Both
expressed doubt to the CBS producer that the documents were real. Neither of
them have appeared on the network nor even been mentioned in CBS's reporting.

   CBS' own experts have moved away from the authenticity of the documents. One
of the experts consulted was Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North
Carolina. She told ABC News that she sent Mapes an e-mail message about her
concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to
use the documents.

   She said, "I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday
night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on
Thursday if they ran that story."

   If Rather was informed of the doubts, he ignored them, plunging his network
into a quagmire. The veteran anchor forged ahead because, as he stated on
Wednesday's broadcast, that the charges are so charges are so serious, the
evidence of little importance.

   His confidence in Mapes may have led him to go with the story, despite the
red flags. After all, it was Mapes who brought CBS the Abu Ghraib photos of
prisoner abuse and who risked jail by refusing to turn over videotapes of
Rather's interview with a man charged in the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd,
Jr. in Jasper, Texas.

   But Mapes' father sees a political agenda behind his daughter's work. Don
Mapes, 76, was a recent guest on a radio talk show hosted by John Carlson on
KVI in Seattle.

   He said, "I'm really ashamed of what my daughter has become. She's a typical
liberal. She went into journalism with an ax to grind, and that was to promote
radical feminism."

   He confessed to being disappointed in his daughter's role in the
controversy. He said, "When I heard about 60 Minutes, I suspected she would be
the producer of the show."

   In an interview with Talon News, Don Mapes said his suspicion was because
that he believed, "Dan Rather and she have been working on this ever since Bush
was elected."

   In commenting on the Wednesday's 60 Minutes show, he said, "It was a farce,
it was fraud. I'm sorry as a father that my daughter was the producer of it."

   His fatherly instinct showed through when he said, "To give her the benefit
of the doubt, I believe she has been had."

   But he also chastised his daughter for being intellectually dishonest.

   He said, "She ought to look closer at George Soros or Michael Moore."

   Mary Mapes declined several opportunities to comment for this article.



Copyright 2004 Talon News -- All rights reserved.



John 

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