Create A New Bureaucracy, Reduce "Competitive Pressures"—That Oughta Solve the Problem

Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi have issued their recommendations to CBS in the wake of the Typeface Affair, which in total claimed four Tiffany Network careers (not counting Dan Rather's departure):

Appoint a senior Standards and Practices Executive, reporting directly to the President of CBS News, who would review all investigative reporting, use of confidential sources and authentication of documents. Personnel should feel comfortable going to this person confidentially and without fear of reprisal, with questions or concerns about particular reports.

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.

Appoint a separate team, led by someone not involved in the original reporting, to look into any news report that is challenged.

Comments

[Matt]

Your header reminded me instantly of the report issued by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, which could have been described exactly the same way.

[Warren]

As far as I'm concerned, any story that cites anonymous sources is worthless. All sources have some agenda, it's important that we know who is claiming what. The idea that 'good gatekeepers' can divine truth from fiction is elitist rubbish. If a story can't stand on named sources and publicly available evidence, then it's not ready for publication.

[Doc]

Yes, now hopefully MSM will use the same stringent standards of evidence that the administration used for proof of WMD in Iraq...

🙂

[Call me snake]

The only competitive pressure felt by that story team was the deadline of November 2. Mapes scoured Texas for years for incriminating evidence on Bush, it was her pet project.

The report's singular focus on the journalistic process is risible.

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Warren, anonymice, like the poor, will always be with us, and on balance I think we're better off for it. Without anonymous sources, we would not have Watergate or that great thing about the guy with the "reality-based community" (the very definition of a story that's too good to check).

[Ken Shultz]

I feel the way Warren does about anonymous authors but not anonymous sources.

"Appoint a senior Standards and Practices Executive, reporting directly to the President of CBS News, who would review all investigative reporting, use of confidential sources and authentication of documents."

Appoint someone to make sure that no one takes any risks.

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

Allow senior management to stipulate that you can have any flavor of story you want so long as it's vanilla.

"Appoint a separate team, led by someone not involved in the original reporting, to look into any news report that is challenged.

Appoint a separate team to take the blame when your newscast is simply a rehash of everything everyone else has already broadcast.

[OPUS]

Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi in the report did not even bother to state that the documents were not originals and that they were forgeries. I guess everyone but Dan gets the boot for sloppy investigative reporting. I hope Dan reports this Report on 60 Minutes!

Dan the man, his hands are clean.

[Ruthless]

Another issue unaddressed is that the story on Dubya was substantially true.
It's evidently lost to history by a smokescreen of winks and nods without a paper trail. Or is it?