The Proud Duck

Thoughts on policy, history, faith, baseball when I get around to it, waterfowl, and life in general by a junior attorney who'd much rather have Jonah Goldberg's job. Or possibly Darin Erstad's.

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Wednesday, September 15, 2004
 
As long as I'm in the letter-posting business, here's one I sent to CBS:

SIR:
Defending a document based on its content, not on its authenticity, is something I expect from a religious apologist, not a news organization. CBS might as well be claiming that even though the Donation of Constantine was forged, its content (a purported selection of the Bishop of Rome to be the head of the Catholic Church) is still true. Leave the question "What is truth?" to the metaphysicians, and do your job as journalists.
I do notice that your statement uses the word "accurate" instead of "authentic" in describing the memos. I presume that this word choice is not accidental; that, having failed to reproduce the memos in question on any 1972-vintage typing equipment (despite what must have been an afternoon of desperate scrambling), and having failed to find any credentialed document expert (typewriter repairmen and handwriting analysts don't count) willing to stake his reputation on a statement that the documents are authentic, you are essentially conceding the documents are forged.
"We publish forgeries, but only if they're accurate" is not a slogan CBS wants to stand on. Your source has lied to you. You have no obligation to maintain his anonymity. In keeping his identity secret, you are an accessory to journalistic fraud.
Since you show no signs of coming clean, I intend to contact my Congressman and request that he request that hearings be opened on this issue, as I doubt that CBS will not do the right thing absent the application of the subpoena power.

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Tuesday, September 14, 2004
 
A letter I submitted today to my hometown paper (well, sort of -- the OC Register is closer both geographically and ideologically, but their comics page stinks, and I need "Frazz") the LA Times. Since, after a long and unbroken string of publishing my submissions, they've taken a pass on my last few, I offer it here humbly for your enjoyment.

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To the Editor:

In the face of overwhelming evidence that CBS News "60 Minutes" show attacking President Bush's military record was based on forged documents, anchorman Dan Rather still insists the documents are authentic, telling the Washington Post, "Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill."

If this passes for an evidentiary standard among journalists, lawyers need to make room for newsmen at the bottom of the "most trusted" list. In litigation, the person making a charge carries the burden of proof -- requiring litigators, if they want to win, to double-check and document their facts in meticulous detail. I couldn't produce a 1961 document purporting to show that Dan Rather kicks his dog and then demand he demonstrate his innocence with "definitive proof" that my document could only have been produced on a 21st-century computer. It's not enough to allege, as CBS does, a theoretical possibility the document might be authentic; the person offering documentary evidence must authenticate it. CBS is attempting to influence a Presidential election with documents that would be inadmissible to prove a $10,000 plumbing contract.

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Monday, September 13, 2004
 
The Wall Street Journal's Opinionjournal.com feature printed response by that newspaper's Public Editor to a person who criticized the paper's refusal to use the word "terrorist" to identify the Islamist terrorists who killed over 300 people, largely schoolchildren, after taking over their school and holding the kids hostage, without food, water, or toilets, for three days.

I thought the PE's reasoning stank, and sent him my thoughts:

Attn: Public Editor
SIR:
Via Opinionjournal.com, I read that you defended the Tribune's reference to the terrorists of Beslan as "militants" or "rebels."
You wrote, "No intellectually honest person can deny that "terrorist" is a word freighted with negative judgment and bias. So we sought terms that carried no such judgment."
Absolutely appalling, and factually incorrect. True, calling someone a "terrorist" involves a "negative judgment." So does calling a person who commits rape a rapist -- but it also happens to be a factually accurate statement. One can be a "rebel" or a "militant" without shooting child hostages in the back. You can't do that and not be a terrorist -- a word whose objective definition surely includes a person who intentionally inflicts bodily harm on noncombatants for political purposes.
Maybe it is true that "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter" (although I suspect that only holds if the "another man" is morally bankrupt). Maybe the line between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" can be fine in some instances. But murdering children after torturing them for three days is so far beyond the pale of any kind of legitimate tactic of resistance that no term but "terrorist" can possibly be accurate -- unless you want to say there's factually no difference between the Beslan murders and that rebellious militant George Washington.
Words have real meanings, and a journalist whose livelihood focuses on using words should know better than to use words improperly out of an exaggerated concern about "judgment." Use good judgment, and use the right words.

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