USA Today Probe Could Spell Trouble for CBS News
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

USA Today’s willingness to investigate the authenticity of documents it and CBS News used in stories questioning President Bush’s Air National Guard Service may set off a feeding frenzy on CBS News if it turns out the documents were faked, the chairmen of two of America’s top journalism departments said yesterday.
CBS said it stands by the story it ran on September 8 in which it broke the news of the documents, which alleged that Mr. Bush used political pressure to get out of the Guard early.
USA Today – which ran a front-page story last Thursday using the same documents – carried a story on Monday in which the paper’s executive editor, John Hillkirk, said the paper has become aware of questions about the documents’ authenticity and is pursuing those concerns “aggressively.”
Dan Rather has repeatedly dismissed criticism of the “60 Minutes II” broadcast as the products of “an Internet rumor mill” and “partisan sniping.”
Critics of CBS – including military officials and forensic document researchers-insist the memorandums CBS News and USA Today based their reporting upon are fakes.
A CBS spokeswoman, Sandra Genelius, told The New York Sun the network is releasing a statement dealing with the documents this morning. She said CBS News would still maintain that the documents are authentic.
The chairman of Boston University’s Department of Journalism, Robert Zelnick, said CBS should at least launch an investigation. CBS said it has no plans to do so.
“USA Today is following the responsible course in reexamining their reporting and it would be nice if CBS did the same,” said Mr. Zelnick. “If [USA Today] backs off the credibility of these documents, CBS will regret their stand. They will have made themselves the story and they will have completely isolated themselves. What will be their defense then?”
Mr. Zelnick, an ABC News correspondent for 21 years until his retirement, said news organizations that make high profile mistakes can often salvage their reputations by offering a “full and fair accounting” as soon as possible.
He said Mr. Rather “has the whiff of combat in his nostrils” and does not recognize the damage he will be doing to CBS News’s franchise by not engaging “thoughtful critics.”
“I believe that CBS owes it to the profession to investigate what occurred with this story,” Mr. Zelnick said. He said the model of “full and fair investigation” into a problem story remains CNN’s work on its “Operation Tailhook” story from 1998, in which it alleged that the American army ordered the gassing of military deserters during the Vietnam War.
After an internal investigation concluded the story was false, CNN retracted the story and dismissed senior producers involved with it.
Another professor, the chairman of New York University’s Journalism Department, Jay Rosen, said USA Today is acting more professionally and that it sees no risk from re-examination of the story.
“CBS has acted cluelessly throughout the whole process. It has not acted like a confident, strong organization that is sure of itself and its mission,” Mr. Rosen said. “Clearly, USA Today appears to have less at stake here than CBS.”
Mr. Rosen said an inability to constructively engage outside criticism is a problem in many news organizations, and is not limited to CBS, though the network “has shown an unusual inability to reckon with the changing face of the Internet and how it related to journalism.”
USA Today’s article on Monday consulted three document verification experts who raised concerns about the authenticity of the signatures and typography of the documents.
The majority of the criticism of the documents focused on whether the typeface used in them existed when they were purportedly written.
One typeface expert, Cyrus Highsmith, said that the font used in the memorandums, Times Roman, existed at the time and could have been produced on a typewriter. Others said the typeface was that of a computer word processing program.
USA Today’s Mr. Hillkirk did not return a message seeking comment.