ABC has used its flagship Evening News program to issue more body blows to Dan Rather and CBS News over their use of forged documents. Brian Ross was the on-air reporter and he's written up his report.
Two of the document experts hired by CBS News now say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast of 60 Minutes II about the disputed National Guard records attributed to Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.
"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.
Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.
"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.
But the documents became a key part of the 60 Minutes II broadcast questioning President Bush's National Guard service in 1972. CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.
"I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Will told ABC News.
A second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano, Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could not authenticate them.
"I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," James said. "And that's why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anybody to think I did authenticate these documents."
This is not an original thought, but is worth repeating nonetheless: at this point, the only plausible reason for CBS News to continue its stonewalling, in the face of both overwhelming evidence to the contrary AND widespread scorn, is to protect its source. The identity of the source must be immensely more embarrassing than the humiliation from the documents scandal itself. That's very interesting. So too will be the coming days.
Posted by Alan at September 14, 2004 08:34 PM