Target Centermass

Category: Blogosphere

  • Need a CBS News Update?

    Well, they’re still a bunch of pathetic weasels that cheapen the journaliasm portion of my agricultural journalism degree.

    For a more current, thorough nailing of CBS’ journalistic atrocities, I suggest this from Sling & Arrows.

  • You Knew It Was Coming

    Rathergate.com (Hat tip to Allah)

  • DMN: Bloggers and Hubris Beat Up Big Media

    This morning’s lead editorial in the Dallas Morning News slams CBS over the Killian forgeries (registration required, try bugmenot.com).

    In the world of investigative journalism, they don’t come any bigger than 60 Minutes. That’s why the lightning-quick takedown of the venerable CBS News program’s tale of President Bush’s alleged sweetheart Vietnam-era treatment in the Texas Air National Guard was so shocking.

    We don’t know for certain if CBS and correspondent Dan Rather were really snookered by forged documents. CBS is sticking by its story that the papers on which it based its damning report were authentic. But that report was shredded by the school of piranhas in the blogosphere – and Old Media reporters who followed quickly in the Web bloggers’ wake.

    The attack started immediately after 60 Minutes II aired the report Wednesday. Hours later, posters at the Free Republic Web site noticed something odd about the documents. The lawyer-run Powerlineblog.com site got interested, and then graphic designer Charles Johnson at littlegreenfootballs.com showed on his site how the documents were likely designed using Microsoft Word and its Times Roman font – which did not exist when Mr. Bush was in the Guard.

    Sensing blood in the water, the professional sharks at ABC News, Newsweek, The Dallas Morning News and others took big bites out of the report’s credibility in other areas. Result: The story is now about CBS and what looks like its sloppy reporting, not Mr. Bush and what he did during the Vietnam era.

    There’s a little more after this, but I think it’s fairly safe to say that the fat lady’s song has started on this story. Also, good to see another MSM recognize the role that Power Line and lgf played in this. INDC Journal and Allah deserved plugs, as well.

  • Dien Bien Phu Defenses Weakening Around CBS

    Roughly a day ago I compared the CBS stance on Rather’s Bush-Killian documents to the French stance at Dien Bien Phu, their Indochina demise.

    Now, it seems the perimeter is weakening to the point of endangerment of penetration.

    From INDC Journal, the WaPo lets go with both barrels.

    From Wizbang!, Rather’s world crumbles.

    From Vodkapundit, CBS News is backing away from the memos.

  • Rather’s Dangerous Game

    With its firm stance supported only by weak defenses, CBS is walking a high-wire with Dan Rather’s assertions that the Bush-Killian documents are valid. These defenses are repeatedly rapidly overwhelmed by the research of the conservative side of the blogosphere, and this has led me to re-evaluate the situation.

    Short of serious substantiation, CBS has two choices: first, crawdad on its assertions and confess its egregious errors in both methodology and mission; second, lay low and continue to deny, hoping it blows over or the rest of the mainstream media rides in to the rescue.

    This brings to mind the French at Dien Bien Phu.

    From Summons of the Trumpet by Dave Richard Palmer:

    The French and the Viet Minh fought the climactic battle at an unimportant and unimposing village high in jungle-covered hills near the Laotian border — Dien Bien Phu. (Memories of that battle would return fourteen years later to haunt and distract American leaders at a crucial moment.) In January 1954, Viet Minh General Vo Nguyen Giap surrounded a large French force at Dien Bien Phu, isolating it from all support except that dropped by parachute. Through February and into March the French held on doggedly. But they were doomed without help — and by March they knew it. Desparately, Paris asked Washington to intervene.

    Is CBS setting up MSM’s own Dien Bien Phu, with the bloggers in the role of the surrounding forces? It would certainly seem that the rehashing of the old AWOL stories would be the equivalent of “an unimportant and unimposing village” in this election year. The stakes on the confrontation? Nothing short of the credibility of the entirety of the old media. If the bloggers retreat into the jungle and let Rather escape, then the current situation continues. If critical mass of the story is reached with the public, MSM goes into a crisis. Will the other branches of the old media play it neutral and see how things play out, or will they do their actual job and seriously look at Rather’s claims? Their credibility may hinge on it, as the Swiftboat Vets story has shown that MSM no longer has exclusive claim to the public’s attention.

    CBS and Rather are potentially setting up their own Dien Bien Phu. Will the rest of the old media support them or do what’s right and what’s their role in society — investigate and cover the story?

  • Upping the Ante

    I’ve previously posted about the $10,000 challenge. Checking back, I see that the author has been deluged with people contacting him.

    Amazingly, my email was flooded with not only people trying to claim the prize, but individuals who so strongly shared my belief that the documents were forgeries that they too, pledged significant amounts of money to the challenge. As of now, including my initial $10,000, the amount pledged stands at $37,900.

    Also, the challenge has spawned another web page, stop60minutes.com, which is still in its infancy.

  • Another Expert Weighs in on the Forgery

    Hat tip to LGF for this tidbit by Joseph M. Newcomer, a self-described pioneer of electronic typesetting with a long list of credentials. He opens with this broadside:

    There has been a lot of activity on the Internet recently concerning the forged CBS documents. I do not even dignify this statement with the traditional weasel-word “alleged”, because it takes approximately 30 seconds for anyone who is knowledgeable in the history of electronic document production to recognize this whole collection is certainly a forgery, and approximately five minutes to prove to anyone technically competent that the documents are a forgery. I was able to replicate two of the documents within a few minutes. At time I a writing this, CBS is stonewalling. They were hoaxed, pure and simple. CBS failed to exercise anything even approximately like due diligence. I am not sure what sort of “expert” they called in to authenticate the document, but anything I say about his qualifications to judge digital typography is likely to be considered libelous (no matter how true they are) and I would not say them in print in a public forum.

    Newcomer then proceeds, at length and with graphic examples, to dissect and destroy CBS’s defense against the MS Word argument.

  • The $10,000 Question

    Hat tip to Wizbang! for finding this challenge about the new CBS documents:

    So, for anyone still willing to consider that these documents are anything other than cheap, childish forgeries, I am offering $10,000 right now to anyone who can find for me a typewriter from 1972 that could have reasonably made those documents. Payment will be made in the form of a cashiers check to the first individual who can do this. The typewriter must be using the same proportionally spaced font as the CBS documents, the same curly-quotation marks, the same impossible superscripted “th”s, the same 13-point line spacing, and create a document that looks as much (or more) like the alleged forgeries than does a Microsoft Word document with default fonts and margins.

  • Old vs. New II

    According to the often-but-not-always accurate Drudge Report, CBS is launching an internal investigation after today’s fun-filled activities. It seems the work of the new media is sending the old media into a rather confused situation.

  • Old vs. New

    Media, that is. It was certainly an exciting day in the blogosphere.

    If you missed it, Little Green Footballs, Power Line, INDC Journal, Allah and others squared off against none other than Dan Rather, 60 Minutes and CBS News.

    It’s not a knockout yet, but it was a 10-8 round for the bloggers. And the mainstream media need to remember to not have the AP as their cutman in the corner.