The Killian Memos

September 8, 2004, the CBS 60 Minutes anchor Dan Rather ran a story about how George W. Bush got preferential treatment in the Texas Air National Guard. The real mix-up started when CBS posted National Guard documents on its website and later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the materials. If I have to put myself in Dan Rather’s situation, as a mass communication student and as a journalist myself, I would probably have cried out:” Hey, colleagues! We’ve got such great material! The audience will love it!” Honestly, for me it is quite easy to imagine and feel Rather & Company’s excitement when they got this unique document from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former US Army National Guard officer. The notes were made by Bush's commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. The Killian memos, allegedly written in 1972 and 1973, included criticisms of Bush's service in the Guard during that time. “In the 60 Minutes segment, anchor Dan Rather stated "we are told [the documents] were taken from Lieutenant Colonel Killian’s personal files" and incorrectly asserted that "the material" had been authenticated by experts retained by CBS.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathergate)

Quite soon the audience got news that the Killian Memos were forged! And of course it raised a question “Who wrote them and why?” Columbia Journalism Review journalist Corey Pein wrote an article “Blog –Gate” where he tried to guess, “The Kerry campaign created the documents. CBS’s source forged them. Karl Rove planted them. Memos were forged, authentic, or some combination thereof.” But one thing is clear; somebody wanted to make CBS look bad. They succeeded! The head of one CBS affiliate said that after the 60 Minutes episode he received 5, 000 e-mails complaints. The final step: Peabody Award-winning producer for the television show 60 Minutes, Mary Mapes got fired by CBS, several senior news executives were asked to resign; Rather announced that he will leave 60 minutes after six month; CBS apologized to viewers. Later Rather stated, "if I knew then what I know now – I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather)

All this Killian Memos mess started just two month before the 2004 Presidential Election. I cannot vote in America because my permanent resident status doesn’t let me vote for five more years, but from living here for more than three years and following America’s political life while I was living in Europe, I have to say very simply: American politics is very dirty (though, of course, European politicians are not better). For example the American Presidential advertisements are just one big set of personal attacks, and vicious distortions! That’s all. Right now we are witnessing the dirty attack methods in the McCain vs. Obama ads. Why did Kerry lose on 2004? Because of a set of forcefully stated and widely circulated untruths! Unfortunately, however much American voters claim to dislike negative campaigning, lies and attack methods really work in American elections. In Kerry’s case, the major example is the famous SBVT (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) a political group of American Swift boat veterans and former prisoners of war of the Vietnam War. This group was established in 2004, during the presidential election campaign for the purpose of discrediting John Kerry, and opposing his candidacy for the presidency. Kerry was awarded with the Purple Heart during his service in the Vietnam War, but SBVT made groundless claims that the official accounts of his heroic service were false and that he had in fact been observed by some of his ‘comrades’ to have acted with cowardice during combat. Kerry lost! It looks like similar attack methods were used against Bush, although compared with the attack on Kerry, the accusation was relatively minor, or even a bit silly! Probably not many people really care what George W. Bush did in 1972 when he was only 26 years old – even if it was very far from heroic. It can be argued that everybody gets bigger or smaller preferential treatments in their life. And when the public very soon found out that the materials were forged, that possibly made Bush looked quite good! Mainstream media picked up the SBVT attack stories, not necessarily agreeing with them, but adding to the publicity. Sadly, I have to agree with The Washington Times article “Playing ‘whack-a-mole’” written by Douglas MacKinnon “The media, not the voters, chose the winner of the 2004 Democratic primaries.” The media stole Kerry’s nomination! The SBVT story is a great example for the old expression “A lie can have traveled half way around the World before the truth has had time to put on its boots”.

In the case of the CBS/National Guard Scandal, however, it looks as though the Media was a bit too quick to discard the story as completely false, even though much doubt had indeed been cast on the authenticity of the documents. More careful examination later showed that many of the accusations of the bloggers and “investigators” who had led the attack on Rather were themselves inaccurate or false. But by then it was too late – any journalist appearing to question the accuracy of the forgery allegations were dismissed as biased liberals.

As a news consumer, journalist, student and voter (not yet), it seems that it is very difficult to get the right balance. It is good that bloggers can dig-in to a news report, question its validity and attempt to uncover the truth. At the same time bloggers can themselves spread lies successfully, by force of numbers and because of the great speed with which those lies can move around the world before anyone has time to check them. An election can be over and the damage done before the full story has been properly and diligently researched by investigators who have no bias and who take the time-consuming trouble of turning over all the stones. The public want news now, and soon loose interest when the answers to not come quickly