On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:03:26 GMT, Juan Jimenez wrote:

Seems you missed the little detail that Killian's secretary said that even
though the memos may not be authentic, THE CONTENT of the memos is very
much true and was probably taken from Killian's journals.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in643768.shtml

And NO ONE is in a better position to make that statement than Marian Carr
Knox.

Whether the memos are real or not makes no difference. The content of the
memos is accurate.

It's prophetic that you would take this point of view, that you would
see nothing wrong with running a suspected to be accurate but
nevertheless unproven story.

The problem is, CBS went to press with information they could not
authenticate. They strongly believed it was true, and managed to find
an 86 year old woman who claimed the content of the memos was
basically accurate, but because they could not prove it beyond the
examination of all who would undoubtedly try very hard to discredit
the information (obviously the Whitehouse would be in a frenzy to
prove the information bogus), they should not have gone to press with
the story. That's pretty basic news journalism ethics: you don't run
what you cannot prove.

Now, because there are genuine problems with the authenticity of the
memos, the public will not understand nor care that the information on
the memos may be essentially correct. Or at least correct in the
memory of the now 86 year old secretary.

So the effect of the episode is to discredit the entire story, which
is a monstrous shame if the information is actually accurate.

Corky Scott