Rathergate: mistakes and lessons learned

Sep. 8, 2004 will forever be remembered as Memogate/Rathergate, or the day when CBS aired a 60 Minutes Wednesday report that scrutinized President Bush’s National Guard service just two months before the presidential election. The report focused on documents that were allegedly written by Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, Bush’s commander. The documents alleged that President Bush disobeyed orders and received special treatment during his service in the National Guard.

Almost immediately after the report aired, bloggers began questioning and investigating the authenticity of these documents. Several experts, including Joseph M. Newcomer, concluded that the documents could have easily been forged in Microsoft Word due to the ease at which one could copy and paste the allegedly typewritten text. Other bloggers picked up on, contributed to, and spread word that the alleged documents that CBS’s report was based off of were forged, and soon bloggers were demanding for an explanation from CBS.

Facing the pressure of bloggers who questioned their transparency, the network fired Producer Mary Mapes, Executive Producer Josh Howard, Senior Vice President Betsy West, and Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. However, the most significant change in CBS’s staff took place when longtime anchor Dan Rather resigned a few months after the report aired. Although Rather had not been involved in any of the research for the story, he joined CBS in defending the documents’ authenticity for about two weeks following the broadcast. To this day, many CBS viewers allege that Rather’s resignation is a direct result of his false claims.

It is my belief that if a reporter wants to deliver a message and connect with their audience, the message better be credible. The problem with Rathergate is as simple as that—a lack of credibility. I’ll admit that from a business standpoint, with the struggling state of today’s media, media conglomerates are doing everything they can to improve ratings and increase revenue, and to them that means breaking the next big story before someone else does. However, if conglomerates pressure reporters to race to throw together stories that are based on rumors and half-truths, the public is going to start to see those networks as no more than greedy rating-grabbers who cannot be trusted and will ignore their coverage.

If there’s one good thing that came out of Rathergate, it’s that many networks and news publications are trying to be more careful about fact checking and more transparent. If the media continues on this path, they might just strengthen the public’s trust in the truthfulness of their reporting. After our discussion in class about blogging’s effect on the media over the last century, I believe that blogs may be another tool journalists can utilize in their quest to increase credibility and report the truth. Ronald Reagan once said, “Trust, but verify,” but in relation to the media today and blogging, as a citizen or as a journalist, I wouldn’t even go that far. As a reporter reading a blog post, I want to know just as much about a blogger’s sources as any news reporter’s. As we discussed in class, blogs can be a good source for stories, so long as reporters—in taking a new, more complex angle on the event or situation presented in the post—carefully investigate the information the blogger cites.

To be honest, as a journalism student who really values truth and transparency in today’s media, incidents like Rathergate horrify and embarrass me. One of my primary reasons for choosing a career in journalism is rooted in my desire to be a whistleblower like H.L. Mencken, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Joseph C. Wilson. I want to publish accurate reports that are strongly supported by careful research and proven facts. I want to “afflict the comfortable,” as Mencken once said, and inform citizens of injustices that are taking place everyday within our country so that they can take those reports, form their own opinions and make their own decisions. However, if reporters in today’s media continue to rush stories (in other words, trade in careful fact-checking for higher ratings), I’m starting to question what the nature of the journalism industry will be like in two years when I graduate. Although I’ve had my heart set on a career in journalism for over six years now, do I really want to enter into an industry that values ratings over the truth? I’m hopeful that over the next two years, reporters and networks will strive to produce more accurate reports not only to increase my trust in the media, but also to increase the public’s.