Journalistic ethics

It really was amusing to read about the firing of four CBS news executives in the New York Post this morning. You had to admire the gall of the paper, not only in writing up the story as if they themselves were above it all but also in publishing an editorial expressing disappointment that Dan Rather and the head of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, had not come under heavier criticism by the blue ribbon panel that investigated the memo controversy.

Most people will of course remember last summer when the Post became a national laughing stock after announcing Gephardt as Kerry's pick for VP. We are still waiting for an explanation of that one.

Or they can look at the opinion page in today's edition and find Dick Morris claiming, without any proof whatsoever, that Hillary must have known of the indiscretions of one of her fundraisers in 2000 who was recently indicted. Morris writes:

The question of who understated the cost of the Hollywood event now joins the pantheon of questions that have haunted the senator's past — Who hid the billing records? Who ordered the travel office firings? Who helped Hillary to make a killing in the commodities market? Did the first lady know her brother was paid to secure a pardon for a major drug trafficker? Did Hillary represent the Madison Bank in a fraudulent real-estate deal? Who ordered the removal of the FBI files?

Hillary's ethical obtuseness is truly Nixonian. Usually campaign-finance filing errors are so mundane that they draw light fines from the Federal Elections Commission. That her campaign committed so important a breach of the finance laws that govern elections that her finance chairman is under a federal indictment is truly extraordinary.

If young David Rosen wants to take the fall for Hillary and join the likes of Web Hubbell and Susan McDougal, who chose to languish in prison rather than tell the truth, that is his decision. But don't ask us to believe something the average 8-year-old knows can't be true — that a gain to the campaign of $280,000 was beneath Hillary's notice.

Apparently the $70 million investigation lead by Ken Starr was not sufficient. There's just got to be something Hillary is hiding.

This kind of stuff is disgusting and the fact that it is left to stand, unchallenged, day after day in the Post puts in perspective the controversy at CBS. People lost their jobs over the questionable memos (never proven fake). Rather will be stepping down at the end of the year, and millions were lost in ad revenue due to weaker ratings for the CBS Evening News. But, over in right winger-land, the more lies and false reporting the better. Rupert Murdoch, the owner of News Corp. which owns the Post, recently accounced he will be paying $6 billion to purchase the rest of Fox - home of the "fair and balanced" Fox News channel and sex-scandal-tarred Bill O'Reilly.