It's just unbelievable.
From that shining beacon on the hill, Newsbusters.org, we're treated to another story of the liberal bias in the mainstream media. Here the knight in shining armor is Bernard Goldberg. Except Goldberg's own armor is badly, badly tarnished. And the rest of the media aren't any better.
Update--- Goldberg's revelation may be even less of a revelation. And I got sucked in.
The first paragraph from Newsbusters gives the background.
On Tuesday, FNC's The O'Reilly Factor hosted FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg as the former CBS News correspondent highlighted a story recently posted on his Web site, BernardGoldberg.com, in which he complains of how little mainstream media attention was given to the fact that former President George W. Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam as part of his service in the Texas Air National Guard, but that he was turned down because other pilots were more experienced, and that CBS News producer Mary Mapes, even though she knew this part of the story before the report aired, did not include this important angle in the infamous piece by Dan Rather that used forged documents to paint Bush as trying to avoid Vietnam War service.
As a factual aside, Bush never specifically volunteered for Vietnam. Who says so? Bush says so. At best, Bush volunteered for a program that "dispatched qualified F-102 pilots in the Guard to the Europe and the Far East, occasionally to Vietnam, on three- to six-month assignments." Search for "dispatched" here
Here's a TV network, CBS. that gives out false information. Other media outlets quickly discover the errors and play up the errors. After a short time, 16 days later, the network, unbelievably, does the following.
- They apologize for the false information.
- They promise to investigate how and why they put out this false information.
Bizarrely, they do the following:
- They conduct a thorough investigation and discover that a producer omitted to include important information.
- A few months after the 60 minutes story ran , they publicly release a 234 page detailed report on the errors.
- They punish those responsible for the error and make process changes so this is less likely to happen in the future.
One more piece of information: Shortly after the story came out Bush provided good evidence that he had volunteered.
Four years after the report comes out, the O'Reilly Factor hosted FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg and breathless revelations.
Revelation #1: The January 2005 234 page report concludes that Mapes knew that Bush had volunteered for Vietnam and omitted it from the story.
Revelation #2: The media did not cover revelation #1 when the January 2005 report came out.
Goldberg wrote:
I made an online check and discovered that while a few websites noted the CBS finding, the story got no ink (that I could find) on the news pages of any big mainstream paper. I did manage to find two opinion pieces about the CBS mess – one in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the other in the Miami Herald — that briefly, and only in passing, mentioned the "Bush volunteered" angle. But that was it! A check of network newscasts turned up nothing.
How did Goldberg learn about Revelation #1?
"I recently re-examined the panel’s report after a source, Deep Throat style, told me to "Go to page 130."
Revelation #3 - Update. Viewing the website of the bulwark against the commie, www.aim.org, I find Cliff Kincaid proclaiming that's not a Goldberg scoop, that's an AIM scoop of January 2005.
Oh, there are so many places to go from here.
First, media incompetence is everywhere. Goldberg goes on The O'Reilley Factor and O'Reilley admits he didn't know about Revelation #1. Here it is, a 234 page report that exposes the errors and omissions of CBS News. The mainstream media don't cover this properly And neither does anyone in the right wing echo chamber, including O'Reilley, covers this. They couldn't be bothered to have a staff person go through a lousy 234 page report looking for more information to beat up CBS.
What's Goldberg's personal excuse?
This information, despite the fact that it has been available since the CBS report came out four years ago, has remained a secret to almost everybody both in and out of the media — one lonely fact in a 234- page report loaded with thousands of facts, and overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the documents. .
Second, there has been great criticism of a few pages of HR3200. Section 123, 124, 1233 and the part on Effectiveness Research. It is clear beyond doubt that many who spoke on these topics on TV (1) never read it (2) read it but can't understand it or (3) read it, understood it but lied and distorted what was written there. This applies especially to the right-wing echo chamber but the rest of the media didn't do much better.
Third, let's apply the CBS standard to the obvious errors in this summer's reporting.
(1)There were never any death panels deciding who would get treatment or not. Even death panel Betsy agreed on the Jon Stewart show that there were no death panels in HR3200.
Ezra Emanual is not a "deadly doctor." He has written many books and articles on health care ethics. He is a staunch opponent of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide as can be clearly scene in his 1997 article in the Atlantic Monthly. Klein's interview with Emanuel includes the link to the Atlantic Monthly.
Amongst all those who words, there some words about how do you make choices among people when their health care MUST be rationed as in the case of organ transplants or a vaccine shortage. For example, If you've got one kidney and three patients who need a transplant how do you choose who gets the kidney. Patient A is 20 years old. Patient B is 20 years old, a drug user and stopped drinking to excess 3 months ago. Patient C is 70 year old. All over American , there are groups and guidelines that decide whether A, B or C get the kidney. That has nothing to do with rationing health care outside of this limited area.
If the CBS response to its errors applied to this summer, there'd be a whole new lineup on Fox News including both 'news reporters' and commentators. CNN would have fired Lou Dobbs.
Fourthly, you can't even trust the fact checking media. I pride myself on my internet crap detector. If something sound too weird, it usually is. So I ran a bunch of searches using google options to limit the results to stories originating in 2005. Mostly, I got overwhelmed from results referring to Goldberg and O'Reilley in August 2009. When I got really specific, nothing showed up in the results. It certainly would have been a lot easier for Goldberg, searching before he polluted the results.
The real revelation is no revelation. The media are incredibly lazy and ignorant . The deeper inside their particular echo chamber they are, the lazier and more ignorant they are.