Who Can Really Say?

A Better Example

Dan Rather is once again the subject of scorn discussion, this time for a story on the Evening News last night about reinstating the draft. Ratherbiased.com posted it at their eponymously named website but high traffic has forced the story over to another site for the time being. You'll find a transcript there, lot's of links debunking the story, and a link to the video itself.

Although the three week old Killian memo story has become the poster child for complaints about low standards of journalism and bias at CBS, I think this story is a better example of the problem. Rather starts the piece with this:

It's no secret: The all- volunteer U.S. Military, especially the Army, Marines and many reserve units, are stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan. So what about bringing back the draft? A lot of Americans are worried about that. Where do the presidential candidates stand? CBS's Richard Schlesinger tells you in the "Eye on America" election series, "What does it mean to you?"

I beg you please, read the transcript and ask yourself the following two questions. What does it mean to me? Have they told me anything that will help me answer the question? I want to know what it means to me and I need help!!

CBS refers to an email floating around the net claiming the draft is in the offing. It's been debunked by Factcheck.org. CBS doesn't mention this in the story.

The focus of the piece is a Philadelphia woman, Beverly Cocco, who fears her sons will be drafted and sent to Iraq. She's a Republican, but she's not sure who to vote for because she's afraid of a draft. Fair enough, so far. But she's also the chapter president of People Against the Draft, an advocacy group who's website tells us how they know the draft "is in the works". CBS showed the main page to their website briefly during the piece, so CBS must know she's the local chapeter president. But they don't mention this in their story either.

CBS then reports that the Selective Service says it can get the draft up and running in six months, or even less. Which appears to be true. But the Selective Service has posted a notice on it's on website that denies any such plans are in the offing. Anyone care to guess whether CBS tells its viewers about that?

Ra^thergate was the perfect storm. The draft story is akin instead to what we're used to from CBS -- a constant drizzle. Either one and you're still all wet.

(Linked to the Beltway Traffic Jam.)

UPDATE: One of the problems with bloggiing is that sometimes as soon as you put up a post you run into something else that would have fit naturally into that post. On that note, Jim Lindgren (new Volokh group blogger) tells us that Beverly Cocco wrote a letter to a local paper back in June, when the email hoax was fresh news. She starts out her letter:

Just this week I received an e-mail so upsetting that I forwarded it to all my friends, who then forwarded it to all their friends. We are now a good size group.

Lindgren has more detail on the debunking of the story here.

So to recap, an eamil hoax lands in Cocco's inbox, she believes it, and joins a bunch of others that believe it. And CBS reports it. The only question remaining is -- who sent her the email? Bill Burkett?

Posted by Peter at September 29, 2004 06:38 PM