|
| Celebrated U.S. Media Scandals |
| Monday, January 10, 2005 |
Jan 10, 12:05 PM (ET)
CBS News on January 10, 2005 said it will fire four employees for their roles in an erroneous story...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An independent report on Monday found a CBS News story about U.S. President Bush's National Guard service record was deeply flawed and came from the network's "myopic zeal" to be first with the news.
CBS said it would fire four employees for their roles in the erroneous story, broadcast on Sept. 8, 2004, and would take steps to bolster its credibility.
Following are some celebrated media scandals over inaccurate or fabricated stories.
April 1981
-- The Washington Post relinquishes a Pulitzer Prize for a story written by Janet Cooke about "Jimmy," an 8-year-old heroin addict who did not exist.
February 1993
-- NBC News admits that it attached explosive devices to a General Motors truck to show the vehicle's dangers in a fire for a November 1992 "Dateline NBC" report. NBC apologized to GM, which filed a lawsuit against the network for staging the crash.
May 1998
-- New Republic magazine fires Stephen Glass for embellishing a story on teenage computer hackers. A month later, editors apologize to readers after finding that Glass invented all or part of 27 of 41 articles he wrote for the weekly.
July 1998
-- CNN retracts its discredited "Operation Tailwind" report broadcast the month before. The report alleged U.S. use of nerve gas on deserters in Laos during the Vietnam War. The cable news network apologized to the Pentagon and fired two producers associated with the story.
May 2003
-- The New York Times national reporter Jayson Blair resigns after fabricating quotes, falsifying datelines and using material from other newspapers in dozens of articles. The Times publishes a four-page account in two articles detailing Blair's fabrications. The scandal led to the resignations of the paper's top two editors.
March 2004
-- USA Today says it found numerous examples of fabrication and plagiarism by star reporter Jack Kelley, who was forced to resign in January that year. The paper's editor resigned in the wake of the scandal.
January 2005
-- Independent panel finds that CBS News failed to authenticate the documents used to substantiate a Sept. 8, 2004, broadcast that said Bush received preferential treatment while serving in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. CBS fires four employees. The network's anchor Dan Rather had already said he would step down on March 9.
|
posted by J.R. @ 3:13:00 PM   |
|
|
|
| |
