January 12, 2005

Memogate: They Weren't Looking

From Howard Kurtz's WaaPo media column today comes this bit of reaction to the report on CBS's use of fraudulent documents to slander President Bush, a report that lays out a mountain of evidence of political bias on the part of story producer Mary Mapes and then claims it could find no evidence that the story was motivated by a political agenda at CBS:

CBS News Vice President Linda Mason, named to a new post overseeing broadcast standards, said the network faces a perception problem on the bias question, in part because the Mapes call to Lockhart "gives the impression you're working with a political campaign to help them."

"There was a rush because Mary felt it was a great story and she was going to get scooped on it by USA Today," Mason said. "I think she would have done that with any story. I firmly believe if they found something about Kerry and his past, they'd be rushing to get that on the air, too."