"It's astounding how little truth there is in Truth. There are, in fact, too many distortions, evasions...
"It's astounding how little truth there is in Truth. There are, in fact, too many distortions, evasions and baseless conspiracy theories to enumerate them all. The film tries to turn gross errors of journalism and judgment into acts of heroism and martyrdom. That's a disservice not just to the public but to journalists across the world who go out every day and do everything within their power, sometimes at great risk to themselves, to get the story right." -- CBS Statement
It's like I've said many times, when someone puts "truth" in their name, that's a pretty good sign that there's going to be a significant lack of truth in the product. There was the anti-smoking site "thetruth.com" which manipulated data about smoking, Obama's "Truth Team" which told bald-faced lies about Mitt Romney, and, of course, Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" which was so riddled with errors that it's become more of a joke than anything else.
This film is much the same. We know that Rather and Mapes could not substantiate the story against President Bush. They had no hard evidence other than the forged documents. They lied about the work they did to get those documents, they lied when they said that the documents were verified as authentic, and so on. CBS nails it with this statement.
There's a reason why Mapes' and Rather's careers in news are essentially over, and it's not because the power of the Bush administration reaches so far that they can control the left-leaning news media six years after he has left office. It's because most of the rest of the journalism world recognizes not only that they made gross errors of judgment and journalism, but that they refuse to admit that they were wrong.
It's like I've said many times, when someone puts "truth" in their name, that's a pretty good sign that there's going to be a significant lack of truth in the product. There was the anti-smoking site "thetruth.com" which manipulated data about smoking, Obama's "Truth Team" which told bald-faced lies about Mitt Romney, and, of course, Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" which was so riddled with errors that it's become more of a joke than anything else.
This film is much the same. We know that Rather and Mapes could not substantiate the story against President Bush. They had no hard evidence other than the forged documents. They lied about the work they did to get those documents, they lied when they said that the documents were verified as authentic, and so on. CBS nails it with this statement.
There's a reason why Mapes' and Rather's careers in news are essentially over, and it's not because the power of the Bush administration reaches so far that they can control the left-leaning news media six years after he has left office. It's because most of the rest of the journalism world recognizes not only that they made gross errors of judgment and journalism, but that they refuse to admit that they were wrong.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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