The press once again proves it's bias

The 'Alphabet Networks' have once again proven their bias by lowering the verification standards for stories involving Republicans to the point at which they will believe and report anything as long as it hurts the Right.

Well, the chickens have come home to roost on this story, or to use another metaphor ...

This one bit them right in the az$:

CBS: Bush documents can't be verified
'We shouldn't have used them,' executive states MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 12:59 p.m. ET Sept. 20, 2004

NEW YORK - CBS on Monday said it cannot vouch for the authenticity of documents used to support a "60 Minutes" story about President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service after several experts denounced them as fakes.
The network said that while it was "deliberately misled," it was wrong to go on the air with a story that it could not substantiate.

"Based on what we know now, CBS News can't prove the documents are authentic," CBS President Andrew Heyward said in a statement. "We shouldn't have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret. Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable and independent reporting. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust."

'Full confidence' initially
The statement began with this explanation of events:

"'60 Minutes Wednesday' had full confidence in the original report or it would not have aired. However, in the wake of serious and disturbing questions that came up after the broadcast, CBS News has done extensive additional reporting in an effort to confirm the documents' authenticity. That included an interview featured on last week's edition of '60 Minutes Wednesday' with Marian Carr Knox, secretary to the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the officer named as the author of the documents; the interview with Bill Burkett to be seen tonight; and a further review of the forensic evidence on both sides of the debate."

CBS said Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, had provided the documents. In a press release accompanying Heyward's statement, CBS said that Burkett "also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents' origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source."

The documents were said to be written by Killian, indicating he was being pressured to "sugarcoat" the performance ratings of a young Bush, then the son of a Texas congressman, and that Bush failed to follow orders to take a physical. Killian died in 1984.

Rather issues own statementThe Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6055248/?gt1=5100