C-BS continues

Michael Hoyt, Executive Editor, Columbia Journalism Review, in a letter to the Editor of the New York Post discounts any contribution of bloggers in uncovering the fraud involved in the CBS Bush National Guard story.

We did find that the bloggers made some of the same types of
journalistic misteps as Dan Rather and company – following some false assumptions, bent logic, and unnecessary haste down the rabbit hole. Worse, the mainstream press picked up some blogworld mistakes. For example, in your paragraph about CJR you say that the bloggers "uncovered the forgeries within 24 hours." While the bloggers strenuously assert that the documents are forgeries, nobody really knows, including the Thornburgh/Boccardi panel, which found that "it may never be possible for anyone to authenticate or discredit the documents" (page 134).

If you ever wondered why journalism is universally thought of as being in disrepute, this is the reason why. It can't be delusion. There is no way anyone who saw those memos, downloaded copies from the CBS site and then looked at the typestyle can fail to see they were fakes. Hoyt would come to the same conclusion if he took the time, which makes it obvious that he doesn't care that the documents were total fakes and is using the cop out quote (page 134) from a shabby report to substitute for the kind of inquiry and fact finding you would expect, no demand!, of a journalist. What Mr. Hoyt is is a shabby partisan and he discredits himself and his institution. But, then, we didn't need the CBS scandal to show us how biased and dishonest our Vichy media is.