New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | September 22, 2004

Charles Paul Freund on CBS and the isolation of network news.

Comments

|9.22.04 @ 2:57PM|#

I'm still not convinced the document scandal is as damaging to CBS's credibility as conventional wisdom says it is. (I feel compelled to point out at this stage that I usually watch the NBC news, so it's not like I'm saying this because of any fondness for CBS/Dan Rather.) Even before this happened, a substantial part of the American populace had clearly reached the point of concluding that any news which does fit their ideological viewpoint is not merely biased but flat-out wrong, while any news that does fit their ideological viewpoint (regardless of how poorly it's supported by the facts) is 100% correct. (This includes both sides of the political spectrum.) The section of the population sneering about CBS's lack of credibility after "Memogate" appears to be composed entirely people who insisted CBS had no credibility before.

|9.22.04 @ 3:01PM|#

Regardless of whatever consequences lie ahead for the election, CBS or anything else, Johnson's animated .GIF file was a absolute masterstroke of visual communication and debunkery.

Any superficial examination of the CBS memos without that GIF would have seen me -- and I suspect most other people -- file the memos' authenticity under the depressingly large category of "Things I Don't Know Enough About To Judge." With it, the whole matter transforms into a litmus test of whether or not your sanity has been corroded by politics.

Edward Tufte should take notice.

Shannon Love|9.22.04 @ 3:07PM|#

"Is the continuing CBS scandal a watershed media event?"

I think it is because it will finally destroy the critical consumer trust in the brands of Major Media that those organization must have in order to survive in the market place.

Most of the hard work of investigative journalism occurs in secret. Secret unnamed sources, secret documents, and secret methods predominate. Much of what goes into news reports on big stories must be taken, at least initially, on trust. News organizations can't reveal their sources without destroying their future ability to gather news.

This system relies on the consumers willingness to trust the news organizations version even though they can provide no immediate proof of their allegations. Once that trust is lost, the news organization's brand is destroyed.

Rathergate is huge in this regard. It looks like an attempt by a major media institution to directly influence the outcome of a Presidential election. It has damaged the brand of every Legacy Media organization. Their ability to report any future stories and have their reporting trusted without proof has been premaritally weakened. From now on the level of proof required by consumers of news will be much higher.

News reporting will be more time consuming and costly in the future with less of chance of reward and kudos at the end of the day.

Shannon Love|9.22.04 @ 3:47PM|#

Another consequence of Rathergate could be the end of the era of the interviewed expert.

Heretofore, major media got to decide which experts got to chime in on any particular story. 10 years ago only the opinions of experts selected by CBS and other major media organizations to view the documents would have been heard. Today, any expert in any field can chime in on any story.

The legacy media has long leant credence to some ideas that had little broad scientific or expert following by the simple expedient of giving the minority viewpoint "equal time." The media created the illusion of widespread doubt and conflict by not weighting the time and space given to experts in proportion to their degree of agreement with others in their fields.

I think that in the future, experts will spontaneously comment on stories and ideas via the Internet. People will begin to credence viewpoints (on which they must rely on authority) based on a broad consensus of the people who know the most about a subject.

|9.22.04 @ 6:44PM|#

Bush's poll numbers were climbing coming out of the Republican convention. What was CBS supposed to do, just watch it happen?

Hehehehe (end snarky comment)

|9.22.04 @ 7:45PM|#

You can't be serious that there is "no evidence" of collusion between CBS and the DNC. What about kicking off Operation Favored Son the morning after the 60 minutes II hitpiece, with an emphasis on the memos only aired the night before? What about CBS hooking up Burkett with high-up DNC officials? What about evidence that the memos were circulating among some DNC operatives weeks before the story ran?

I'm not saying that it is a proven fact, but there certainly is *evidence* of collusion -- not on forgery but certainly on helping the Kerry campaign.

|9.22.04 @ 8:05PM|#

"network news"- Brings back some dim childhood memories. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I watched. They are going to have to pull *more* stunts like this, not fewer, if they want to stem the tide of people who no longer pay attention to them.

I do hope that whatever happens at CBS, Rather will be back every 4 years for election night coverage. I'd love for his entertainingly surreal show he did in 2000 to be a recurring thing. It would give us something entertaining to look forward to each election.

|9.22.04 @ 8:54PM|#

In American culture, confession is half the journey to redemption. (In practice, the other half of that journey is that people forget what you did.)

I'd like to introduce my buddy, John McCain...

|9.22.04 @ 9:20PM|#

"What about kicking off Operation Favored Son the morning after the 60 minutes II hitpiece, with an emphasis on the memos only aired the night before?"

Had these memos been the first, or even close to the first, evidence of Bush's slacking and favored treatment, that might make some sense. But this story had been out there literally for years, and the Democrats had been telegraphing that they were going to push it hard for a month.

Burkett jumped on the bandwagon, in exchange for being allowed to talk to one of John Kerry's campaign aides on the phone for five minutes. CBS jumped on it so they could be just ahead of a story that they knew was going to be big, one that looked bad for George Bush.

|9.22.04 @ 10:03PM|#

Watching Rather & CBS go off the cliff has been more entertaining than William Shatner singing Beatle songs.

The great thing is that Wiley Coyote Rather is only halfway to the ground at this point, it's still a long way to go before we get to see that little puff of dust.

How sweet it is.

|9.23.04 @ 12:46AM|#

Shannon Love,

Rathergate is huge in this regard. It looks like an attempt by a major media institution to directly influence the outcome of a Presidential election. It has damaged the brand of every Legacy Media organization. Their ability to report any future stories and have their reporting trusted without proof has been premaritally weakened. From now on the level of proof required by consumers of news will be much higher.

Sounds like the same sorts of unsubstantiated prognostications and wishful thinking that is your forte Shannon. In three years no one will give a shit about Rathergate; just like they have totally forgotten about CNN's Viet Nam story fuck-up. Shit, if folks were so upset about what goes in the mainstream media they would have shit bricks over Fox's "documentary" about the so-called "moonlanding cover-up."

I think that in the future, experts will spontaneously comment on stories and ideas via the Internet. People will begin to credence viewpoints (on which they must rely on authority) based on a broad consensus of the people who know the most about a subject.

Which explains why, despite debunking that goes back to the time of at least Houdini, large portions of the US population still believe that people can contact their dead relatives. Honestly Shannon, you come up with the biggest bullshit here this side of joe.

Matthew Cromer,

What about kicking off Operation Favored Son the morning after the 60 minutes II hitpiece, with an emphasis on the memos only aired the night before?

Those were different memos as I understand it.

|9.23.04 @ 1:04AM|#

I am not sure about the long-term effect (to CBS), but Jay Leno had a field day making fun of Rather (not the kind of jokes he does about Bush/Kerry, etc., but much more 'insulting').

Rather will/should leave soon (after the elections, so he can save face)

|9.23.04 @ 1:15AM|#

Jason Bourne = Gary Gunnels?

Discuss.

|9.23.04 @ 1:54AM|#

I think he's actually Dr. Moriarty.

|9.23.04 @ 4:20AM|#

Its unfortunate that we cannot go back to the days when news organizations (largely papers) were associated with one party or the other; they were organs of the parties after all, and they didn't have to worry about this objectivity chimera.

Imagine, the CNN Democrat and the Fox News Republican (or insert your own choice). :)

|9.23.04 @ 10:45AM|#

Jason,

I don't see why not.

|9.23.04 @ 10:53AM|#

Shannon, I see a lot of merit to what you're saying about the old system of "gatekeeper" news organizations framing debates - for example, their irresponsible determination to depict every controversy as "he said she said" without regard to the legitimacy of the two sides.

But a couple of your statements about the internet making this better are just Panglossian:

"Today, any expert in any field can chime in on any story." And so can any dipshit with an opinion, and if that opinion is what a subset of the population want to hear, that irresponsible dipshit with the corporate backing becomes, in their eyes, the most respected climatologist ever to walk the earth, and brave truth teller who won't let "the man" keep him down.

"People will begin to credence viewpoints (on which they must rely on authority) based on a broad consensus of the people who know the most about a subject." What is more likely is that, on matters which are important and controversial, people will choose to listen to those "experts" that support their prejudices. Creating phony "consensuses" and creating the impression that there is significant dissent in cases where there are not has become a large industry.