- The Command Post has their chat room open to discuss the debate.
- CNN has a poll up about the political abilities of late-night television viewers. Short and sweet. Via Barista.
- Hugh Hewitt has a scorecard up with details on how the candidates did and what details about the camera view are important. Via Instapundit.
- Joe Territo is liveblogging. So is James Joyner. And Damian Penny.
- Is anyone putting the questions in graphics on the bottom of the screens? Just curious.
- Seems to be more splitscreens to show Bush's expressions towards Kerry's answers than vice versa.
- Jeff Jarvis asks something I was just thinking myself - "Why (on NBC, at least) is Bush 10 percent higher on the screen than Kerry?" I don't know if the splitscreen camera is "pool" or not, but on MSNBC it looks as if the angles are different. I think it's because of the positioning of cameras - any ideas? Time reports this week that the podiums were 50" tall, and were spaced far enough apart that the candidates would not have such a different in height when shown on screen together.
- MSNBC's Ron Reagan says that Kerry clearly won, Scarborough calls it a "very clear win on all points for John Kerry."
- What's with the "Hurricane Cheerleader" girl on MSNBC on the phone with her friends, and the people holding up the big "Poo" sign over their heads?

I'm going to comment live on the debate - though not so much about what is said, but how the coverage is working. Some initial thoughts:

- It's good to see that the cameras are taking a look at the opposite candidate that is speaking.
- One quality splitscreen so far, showing Senator Kerry seemingly agreeing with President Bush's point.
- Two more splitscreens, both done perfectly. One before Bush requested an extension to speak, another where Kerry gets to rebut.
- What happened to the "sitdown"? I had thought the candidates would be sitting in a different setting? Senator John Edwards pointed out on the "Imus in the Morning" program a few days ago that this would be the case.
- Jay Tea at Wizbang! is liveblogging with lots more detail on the politics of it all.

Over at askSam.com, they've posted the platforms for both the Republican and Democratic parties to help do a little "fact checking" while watching tonight's presidential debate.

[hat tip: Chris]

India's Sify.com has an article by Stephanie Griffith about the influence that bloggers can wield, especially regarding this year's presidential election.

California's Sierra Sun posts a fascinating piece of research by Gordon Richards that describes what life was like as an editor for the newspaper back in 1874 and 1912. Let's just say that circulation issues and plagiarism would have been small potatoes compared to what was going on at those times.

Nashvillecitypaper.com has an article by Ron Wynn that talks about author David Halberstam's upcoming appearances in Nashville, where he is set to speak about various media issues in today's world. In advance of that, Halberstam has said he "is not surprised" about the current situation at CBS News, and states that "they have been heading in that direction for a long time." But the "they" he is speaking of seems to be a much broader stroke than just towards CBS - and that "star journalism" isn't the way to go.

Over at Rathergate.com and Little Green Footballs there is speculation that CBS is attempting to "cover up" their mis- or non-identification of an interviewee in a segment about the draft potentially coming back in play if President Bush is re-elected. The evidence being used is this article on the CBS News website that "accompanies" the television story. The item, however, is not a transcript at all, and is merely a story about the topic in print form. Whether or not it has been edited I cannot prove or disprove at this time, but the following is the transcript of the story, obtained directly from CBS News this evening.

Schlesinger/Karas/ CSM MCENENY Eve News

Nat sot: Beverly At The Crossing

Beverly Cocco has spent most of her life protecting children in
Philadelphia.

More nat sot:

She spends most of her time worrying about other people's kids... but as
Election Day approaches, it's her own two grown sons who Beverly is most
worried about.

4918 I GO TO BED EVERY NIGHT AND I PRAY AND I ACTUALLY GET SICK TO MY
STOMACH.. I'M VERY WORRIED 4922 I'M SCARED. I'M ABSOLUTELY SCARED, I'M
PETRIFIED 4926

Beverly is petrified about a military draft...and she's not alone. There's
an undercurrent of anxiety...mass e-mails are circulating among parents
worried their kids could be called up.

But neither President Bush, nor John Kerry has said he will re-institute the
draft. In fact they both say...they won't.

SOT: Kerry3402 I WILL GIVE US A FOREIGN POLICY THAT ABSOLUTELY MAKES IT
UNNECESSARY TO HAVE A DRAFT FOR THIS COUNTRY 3407

(graphix)
Kerry says he'll try to get allies of the U.S. to send troops that could
relieve AMERICAN soldiers IN iRAQ.

(graphix)
The administration says THAT is pure fantasy. The president wants to train
more IRAQI troops to take over for the Americans. And he says despite the
war on terror there will be no draft.

Bush 1304 THE WAR ON TERROR WILL CONTINUE, IT'S GONNA TAKE A WHILE AND NO,
WE DON'T NEED A DRAFT 1308

But Beverly's not buying it. She's a republican, but also a single issue
voter.

4430 (rj) WOULD YOU VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT? (bev) ABSOLUTELY 4432 I WOULD VOTE
FOR HOWDIE DOODY IF I THOUGHT IT WOULD KEEP MY BOYS HOME AND SAFE 4436

In fact there are at least 3 votes in this house riding on the draft.
Beverly's and her sons' Carmen and Nick.

5855 (rj) ARE YOU GUYS WORRIED ABOUT BEING DRAFTED? (both nod--nick says)
YEAH 5859
(close up nick)
5920 IT'S THE TALK. THE TALK'S THERE. 5922 THOUGH PEOPLE AREN'T ACTUALLY
COMING OUT AND SAYING IT, IT'S THERE 5927

What worries the Coccos is the continuing need for more troops in dangerous
places. And the machinery for a draft is already in place. All men have to
register when they turn 18. The Director of Selective Service...believes he
could start drafting people quickly.

SOT: JacK MARTIN.Selective Service: I THINK WE COULD DO IT IN LESS THAN SIX
MONTHS IF WE GOT THE CALL.

On Camera: THIS TIME THERE WOULD BE NO LONG DEFERMENTS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS.
AND A LOT MORE PEOPLE COULD BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE DRAFT THAN BEFORE. MEN AND
WOMEN AGE 18 TO 26 COULD BE CALLED UP. THERE HASN'T BEEN A DRAFT SINCE 1973
BUT THAT'S MUCH COMFORT TO BEVERLY COCO.

So she is keeping a sharp eye on the political traffic...She's a Bush
supporter today...but if she doesn't like what she hears between now and
November...she could easily cross over.

At no point does it say anything about the "People Against the Draft" organization, and is the official transcript of the program. The article is not.

[update: 9/30 6:57am] Daily Dose of Mayo posts a link to the it seems that the original article (not transcript), which did not originally have the "People Against the Draft" - you can see the cache here. Changing news stories is something that happens all the time - though some outlets post when they last updated. (via a comment on Rathergate)

[update: 9/30 1:39pm] Bill at INDC Journal posts interviews he did with members of the CBS News staff on the subject. Misleading doesn't begin to describe how these stories are beginning to appear. [Via Outside the Beltway]

Michele at ASV posts some unfortunate news that definitely comes as a surprise. Radio has lost longtime DJ Scott Muni, whose cause of death is unknown at this time. Rolling Stone reports that he died last night at his home at age 74.

Wow. I really must be old school or something. I'm a big double spacer, even though a lot of the software I've been using doesn't seem to agree with it. But that doesn't stop me and my spacebar smacking thumbs. Perhaps I'll have to follow suit, leave MLA behind, and stick to publication-type.

Force of habit, I guess. All those typing classes in high school.

On Tuesday, satellite radio provider SIRIUS announced that Wal-Mart would be carrying a Sanyo Plug & Play device that offered the radio service for about $150. Opinions on Wal-Mart aside, can a big jump into an outlet like this give SIRIUS a huge jump in sales by year's end? There are tons of holiday gifts purchased at the store, including many that are outside of big-city America - which has been buffeted with SIRIUS advertising - so it definitely can't hurt.

To close the loop on this, it should be noted that Wal-Mart had been carrying a Jensen product in some locations, but I have not heard that it has made a huge dent in the market.

RatherBiased.com, plagued with server troubles yet again, doesn't fail to bring yet another scoop to the 'net. Last night (and updated this morning) they reported that an item on CBS News about suspicions that Selective Service will reinstitute a military draft if President Bush was re-elected was based on....more "sources" that aren't exactly clean.

Thanks to Rathergate.com for helping out with hosting RBDC's postings - they're also responsible for setting up a way to support RatherBiased's needs, which have increased based on the interest these latest CBS News stories have garnered. They've stepped up big here, so if you would like to help out, drop by their site and donate some funds.

Power Line has more, including a statement from Selective Service that says it is "not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces."

North Carolina's News 14 reports Wednesday that media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications owes Cumberland County more than $60,000 as a make good for underbooking shows it said would be brought into a local entertainment venue. The Fayetteville Observer's Andrew Barksdale has more.

Over at Wizbang!, Kevin Aylward points out a slight adjustment to a quote in an AP story that includes Senator John Kerry's infamous "I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it" line. On Wednesday morning, an interview with Kerry and ABC's Diane Sawyer ran on the "Good Morning America" program. During the interview, Kerry said that the quote "was a very inarticulate way of saying something" and that it was said "late in the evening when I was dead tired." But, as Aylward links, the Washington Post reported back in March that this quote was said "at a noontime appearance."

I expect that some mud will fly here, but the most interesting thing is the AP article on the subject, which says "It was just a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those inarticulate moments," but leaves out the "late in the evening" aspect of the quote. Obviously you can't say the gun is absolutely smoking, but it certainly doesn't look too good for the candidate or the wire story. If it's known as fact that Kerry made the comments while it was daytime, and then counters it saying that it was late at night, causing the gaffe, then the context around the quote is completely removed. Or at least that's how I see it.

The ABC News coverage of the interview, including the original quotes from the program, can be found here.

Indiana's WNDU posts a report by Jennie Runevitch about a panel discussion earlier this week at the University of Notre Dame that focused on media bias. The primary result was that transparency is key in getting rid of biases, perceived or otherwise. One point made by the Philadelphia Inquirer's Monica Yant Kinney I believe is very important - "distinguishing commentary from reporting." When news programs aren't clarifying one from the other, viewers are left in the dark - and not everyone is always able to discern what is absolute "news" and what is opinion and discussion.

Antonia Oprita writes a piece featured on Reuters' AlertNet about the resignation of Cornel Nistorescu, editor of Romanian daily Evenimentul Zilei. Some believe his departure was part of a government push because of the editor's outward criticism of the political powers in the country. Nistorescu's "Farewell!" column on Tuesday doesn't exactly seem to show any political pressure (not that I would expect it to), only that there were "differences in the way [owner Ringier Romania and Nistorescu] see the modernization of the newspaper."

It is also stated that, going forward, there will be two opinion pieces per week authored by Nistorescu in the publication.

OneWorld South Asia has an article that reports on statistics that show that Chinese insurance companies list the profession of journalism as "the third most dangerous profession in the country." The article goes on to describe the various censorship issues that have taken place in recent months, many of which involve blocking specific Internet sites.

The Associated Press reports that a journalism program being run in Baghdad has closed up shop for the time being, but is expected to resume elsewhere. The program, run by University of Arizona journalism grad Maggy Zanger, was teaching journalism skills to Iraqis - but could not continue to operate in the current unstable environment in the capital city.

It shouldn't be too surprising, as the times have shown that safety is of utmost priority, and even our newsgathering agencies are changing their tunes to, effectively, appease those who oppose efforts by military forces in the Middle East.

CNN reports Tuesday afternoon that producer Riad Ali was released after being held for almost 24 hours by a group who appear to oppose Israeli rule, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Ali had been kidnapped at gunpoint on Monday in Gaza City.

Steve Hall at Adrants leads us to a story about Nielsen Media Research making a new level of detail available in its ratings - minute by minute stats. This, of course, makes figuring out commercial viewership a little bit easier - but not perfect - because, as Hall points out, it's still "minute by minute" - and most commercials still fall into the 30 second timeframe.

In early July, news came out that the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes, Paul Klebnikov, had been killed - possibly for something he wrote or investigated. On Tuesday, Jeff Quinton posted details from Reuters that two Chechens had been taken in by police for being involved with the crime. I expect there will be more news to come on this story, as it is not apparent whether these two individuals are suspects in the actual murder or just conspirators to some point.

[via Rusty Shackleford - who has "a healthy neutrality until all the facts come to light."]

The Wichita Eagle's Alan Bjerga informs about a bill currently making its rounds through Washington's lawmakers that would significantly increase single station indecency fines - by ten times. Bjerga writes that the bill, sponsored by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, is "poised to become law" and is just one of multiple efforts currently being raised in order to combat indecency on television broadcasts. But the most interesting thing I found was another technological advance that goes beyond the "V-Chip" - but could have bigger implications.

Companies are working on technology that would code scenes from programs for content. If a parent programmed a television to delete certain content, the screen would go blank during that scene.

I would question whether this is any better than the "V-Chip" technology currently being underutilized by parents - if that is too much of a hassle to use, then why would a parent start using something that chopped up programming?

Monday afternoon came with the news that CNN producer Riad Ali had been kidnapped in Gaza City. Details here at TVNewser and here in CNN's coverage.

Ryan at Dead Parrot Society posts about an article that I can only describe as fascinating. In it, author Eamon Hickey describes the process by which the images for one issue of Sports Illustrated are reviewed for placement - in this case, the goal is the Super Bowl edition's cover photo.

Matt Drudge has the scoop on a big announcement from NBC - that Conan O'Brien will take over the "Tonight Show" from Jay Leno in 2009. More details here at MSNBC. I wonder if O'Brien will move out West to Tinseltown to do the show...

MediaPost's George Simpson absolutely buries a speech given by Gavin O'Reilly of the World Association of Newspapers at an advertising meeting in China. O'Reilly's "Top 10 Reasons Why Newspapers Are Still the Best Advertising Medium" list gets quickly debunked in the article - but take heart, it's only in the "Over the Line" column. It's not like Simpson was serious or anything [/sarcasm]

The UK's Independent has an item that blasts Google's news aggregation service, Google News, for "undermining those who break stories." Is this putting too many eggs in the aggregator's basket? Is the "exclusive" ruined by a service that seems to put the most recently updated story within a topic at the top of a search result for news on that topic? I know, I know - lots of questions. But I can't say for sure that just because Google News has a habit of doing something that it will be the dearth of credit for whomever breaks a story first.

Well, I'm off for a few days, expecting to be back sometime Sunday. I don't expect to have Internet access at all, unless I drop into an Internet cafe somewhere. Enjoy, and have a great weekend, everyone.

MediaPost's Michael Shields covers a discussion Wednesday at the Forecast 2005 event, where a SWOT analysis of mass marketing was gone through - all though it seems to have ended up as more of a look at the weaknesses and threats than the strengths and opportunities....except for the topic of addressable marketing. If you own a DVR, then you realize the impact it has on your own television viewing habits. Multiply that by 30,000,000 and you'll see what advertisers see coming into their rear view mirror right now. But, as they are quick to point out, "the networks as not being cooperative in addressing this issue in terms of advertising." Why is that? Well, because the first step in moving forward is admitting that there is a problem - and many people aren't sure that television networks, who hold all of the cards, want to do that just yet.

Rory O'Connor asks Don Hewitt, the creator of CBS News' "60 Minutes" program, what he thought about the show going forward with the memos at the center of the latest media controversy before they could be independently confirmed. While Hewitt isn't saying much about what he would have done and hasn't shared his opinion about the validity of the memos themselves, there is something curious about it - it seems that no one at CBS News even asked him a thing about the story. And why is it that O'Connor was told that Hewitt "wasn't around much" and that there was no direct extension for him - just minutes before he got a direct line and reached the former executive producer on the telephone? Surely they're not trying to hide Hewitt from talking to the press about this situation, are they?

And yes, I know he isn't the producer of the show any longer - but he still works at CBS, and could still be used "behind the scenes" as another person to bounce ideas off of, right?

Yesterday, the Center for Creative Voices in Media announced that the FCC will be directed form new guidelines regarding the broadcast of independently produced and locally-focused programming, which many groups feel is lacking. In August, an op-ed ran in the Seattle Times that asked the FCC for more programming to be broadcast that fit the public interest as a whole. The FCC seems to agree with the op-ed's sentiments, taking the stance that the ability to broadcast is a right granted by the public (the government, in this case), and that broadcasters should have to serve the public interest as part of their "fee" for their licenses.

The Quad City Times publishes an opinion item about the apology that Dan Rather and CBS News made earlier this week, and says that they're sorry, too - because journalism has taken another hit on its collective credibility. The piece points out the one glaring item I think lands right on the mark - that Rather, producer Mary Mapes, and CBS News "seemed willing to relax ethics and accounting practices to accommodate what they perceived as a big story."

Kerri Elgar at The Australian comments on an informal survey put together to determine how members of the media felt about the digital editing of photographs used in a publication. The results might be surprising, especially when comparing the opinions of Americans versus those of Europeans and Australians.

The Houston Chronicle's Ron Nissimov writes about a situation in the Houston area where media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications has kept a significant number of its billboard population up and running by filling them with charitable messages or church information - which, in turn, lead to a potential tax write-off for the company.

The hits just keep on coming...

The New York Observer's Joe Hagan has details on another situation that will surely not make CBS News look good in the public eye. This time around, Hagan reports, the network was found to have been using a "rogue soldier," Jonathan Idema, to provide them with stories from deep inside Afghanistan. But that's not the problem - it seems that Idema was arrested last July for operating a private jail - which CBS employees reportedly knew about but continued to use him as an "on the ground" operative for some time before his arrest. The network claims that they had no prior knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Idema's actions, however.

Even if CBS employees weren't involved in the videotaping or situation in Afghanistan, this story does one important thing - adds to a particular pattern of behavior. Since we live in a time when the term "vetted" is now part of the public's lexicon, and not just that of speechwriters and journalist-types, I suppose it would be fair to point out that this just adds to the criticism of the network overall. They are either doing a very poor job of checking backgrounds on their sources, or they are running with material they know might be sketchy, in order to keep up with the Joneses - i.e. the rest of the news organizations. And while the latter is probably not the case, it shouldn't be left out of the realm of possibilities - the network's ratings haven't exactly been stellar over the last few years, including a 10% drop since this time in 2003, the Chicago Tribune's John Cook writes.

And to continue the thread, check out this item at RatherBiased.com, with more details about the goings on at CBS and parent company Viacom.

Canada's Embassy magazine has a thought provoking article Wednesday from Vadim Fotinov about press freedom in Russia and, more importantly, the way the terror in Beslan has been covered worldwide.

The use of words other than "terrorist" to describe people who commit acts of terror has been a much-discussed point of late, especially by bloggers. Bloggers on both the right and left agree that kowtowing to interests other than reality shows a sad state of affairs when it comes down to it. On Tuesday, LGF's Charles Johnson posted something that we've been curious about some time - "Why Reuters Won't Say 'Terrorist'" in their articles. They're doing it because of the potential threat to their reporters "in volatile areas or situations." While I don't want to see any journalist get killed as much as the next guy, it's almost like putting in the "if you don't [x], the terrorists have won" comment to actual use, isn't it?

This got enough interest by bloggers that one of them created a Movable Type plugin to replace certain words with "terrorist" whenever they were put into a post. [via Michelle Malkin] Sure, it's all fun and games, but it leads to a more important point, which Fotinov makes crystal clear.

For example, many Russians have been surprised that quite a few Western journalists covering the terrorist attack in Beslan did everything to avoid using the word "terrorists", replacing it in their reports with such euphemisms as "militants," "attackers," "radicals," "rebels," and "criminals". It is not all that important whether this is the case of political correctness or the desire to adhere to the "official line". What really matters is the fact that this linguistic exercise -- with a touch of politics -- has not escaped the attention of those readers, listeners and viewers in the West who are used to calling a spade a spade.

So if you're one of the people who previously didn't agree with the sentiment and thought it wasn't really that big of a deal, you might want to reconsider a little bit - it does matter. Not only do we notice, but our peers halfway across the globe notice, too.

Over at Adrants, Steve Hall points out that at least one media consultant suspects that advertisers may take some of their spending away from CBS in the wake of "memogate," according to this article by Paul Tharp at the New York Post.

While you have to take opinion columns a little bit more differently than you would a straight news article, I'm a bit peeved by this item in Wednesday's Newsday by Danny Schechter. Michele at ASV posted about it this morning, and I take just as much offense to it as she does.

In the piece, Schecter claims that the whole flap around "memogate" or whatever we're calling it this half hour was only begun after a PR firm got involved and was pitching the story to people, even though most people have said that it was after they read something that a poster, "Buckhead," on a Free Republic thread had written about it. Is this to say that there is no independent-think going on, and that people who had knowledge of typewriting could not have investigated this on their own? Do people really think that while Bush's Air National Guard service may still be in question, and has been overshadowed by this story at CBS, that the media going live with something that may be falsified isn't a story? Yes, that's his point - but is it wrong for them to do so? Hell, even if it was some sort of setup by whomever Schechter believes it is, it's all part of the same story.

Is Schechter so blind to think that only "the rabid conservative grapevine and amen corner" picked this up and ran with it? While I hate injecting myself into a story such as this, I'm going to do so in order to prove a point. I consider myself one who covers "the media" - whatever that term may be. If it looks like something is fishy with a report done on a news program, I'm going to cover it. I don't care about which people from which side of the political spectrum are pushing it, I do my best to weed that out and figure out what the real story is - as a journalist, Schechter should believe that there are people out there who have the same skillsets he claims to have - the bullshit alarm. This smelled really really bad from the moment I heard about it - in turn, I picked pu on it a little bit. At the same time, I will happily point out that I am a registered Democrat who votes on his conscience and with whatever candidate(s) I believe will do the best job. Am I a "rabid conservative" or part of the "amen corner?" Heck, no. Stories are stories. Did this particular story "overshadow" questions that people have about the President's service in the National Guard? Sure it did. But in no way, shape, or form did any of the bloggers Michele mentioned in her post take the "pitch" from a PR firm and run with it following any lawyer's "leadership." Hell, the firm, Creative Response Concepts wrote in their Press Room that "the bloggers, and then CNS www.cnsnews.com [CRC's client], were moving this story, which we then began pushing to conservative media, news websites and "mainstream" press." Many of the bloggers who were hot and heavy on this story are those that Schechter would claim are on the "conservative grapevine" - which is true - but as far as I can tell, exactly zero of them claim to have been "led along" or having recieved a pitch from CRC on this story.

Obviously I can't disagree that those who have more conservative beliefs investigated this quite a bit - that's their "job" as bloggers of that persuasion. But to say that no one picked this up who thought it was a news story is just absurd. Until there's a media "watchdog" who isn't just trying to point out what people on the other side of the fence are saying that's bad, arguments and columns like this will appear. Just my two cents.

Straight from CBS' press release, here are the details on the independent panel chosen to investigate the "60 Minutes Wednesday" situation.

THE HON. DICK THORNBURGH AND LOUIS D. BOCCARDI TO COMPRISE INDEPENDENT REVIEW PANEL EXAMINING CBS NEWS "60 MINUTES" WEDNESDAY REPORT

The Honorable Dick Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania and United States attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press, will comprise the independent review panel that will examine the process by which a recent 60 MINUTES Wednesday report was prepared and broadcast.

The Sept. 8 broadcast reported that President George W. Bush had received favorable treatment to enter the Texas Air National Guard and had not fulfilled all of the Guard's requirements. CBS News acknowledged this week that it cannot prove the authenticity of disputed memos featured in the report and that, therefore, it was a mistake to use them.

Two days ago, CBS News and CBS announced the commissioning of an independent review to help determine what errors occurred in the preparation of the report and what actions need to be taken. The two-person review panel will commence its work this week and will have full access and complete cooperation from CBS News and CBS, as well as all of the resources necessary to complete the task. The panel will report its findings to CBS News and CBS. The findings also will be made public.

Thornburgh was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1978 and served two successive terms in that office. He was attorney general of the United States for three years in the cabinets of Presidents Reagan and Bush (1988-1991). All told, Thornburgh served in the Justice Department under five presidents, including as U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh (1969-75) and Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division (1975-77). Under his direction, the Department of Justice obtained a record number of convictions of savings and loan and securities officials, defense contractors and corrupt public officials. In August 2002, Thornburgh was appointed Examiner in the WorldCom bankruptcy proceedings, the largest ever filed, to report on wrongdoing and malfeasance that led to the company's downfall. He also served as Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations (1992-93) and as a consultant to the U.N. and the World Bank on efforts to battle fraud and corruption. Thornburgh is counsel to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, which will assist in the independent investigation.

Boccardi retired from the Associated Press in 2003 as president and chief executive officer after a 36-year career there, including the last 18 years in that position and 10 years as executive editor. He oversaw the launching of APTN, the world's largest video news service, and the creation of The WIRE, AP's multimedia internet site. Boccardi has also taken a leading role within the news industry on critical First Amendment and freedom of the press issues, as well as challenges to credibility and readership. In 1990, he was elected a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, the highest honor awarded by the organization to journalists, and a Distinguished Service Member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Boccardi is also the recipient of the William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit and the Overseas Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a retired member and former chairman of the Pulitzer Prize board.

While I expect most of the criticism to be surrounding the fact that there are two people appointed, it's not necessarily such a bad thing. You have one person who has government and legal experience, and another who has an excellent background in the media. A solid combination, in my estimation. Now, let's see what they come up with.

[update 5:51pm] Well, resumes might be one thing, but Kevin at Wizbang! has some details that might detract from the value that these investigators might bring to the table...

Deutsche Welle is looking for your submissions for their Best of the Blogs (The BOBs) awards for 2004. You can nominate blogs through October 17, and everyone is eligible. Awards are broken down into the following categories: Best Weblog, Best Subject, Best Design, Best Innovation, and Best Journalistic Blog - with the last one being broken into seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish). After the submission deadline, journalists, weblog experts, and media researchers that have been contacted by Deutsche Welle will nominate ten sites themselves in each category. On or around November 1, user voting will commence on all nominations, with winners being announced on December 6.

So do your thing and drop by the site and suggest sites that you believe take the cake in those categories. And spread the word!

Mithridate over at the Ombudsgod comments on a story containing pieces of an interview recently done with Don Mapes, the father of CBS / "60 Minutes Wednesday" producer Mary Mapes. Needless to say, Mapes had some interesting thoughts on the situation surrounding the "memogate" story, specifically about his daughter's involvement.

The Christian Science Monitor's Scott Peterson writes that recent suspicious activity around members of the Russian press suggests that government tactics are at the point of hindering the ability for journalists to do their job. This issue has reached the public more prominently of late after the Chechen terrorist siege on a school in Beslan, Russia a few weeks ago. One example of "intervention" was the apparent poisoning or drugging of a newspaper reporter who was en route to the scene when she fainted on the plane, only to awaken when she arrived at the airport. The article also details another journalist who was tested after waking up in a hospital a day after being interrogated by government officials.

Peterson makes the point that some officials believe that the press not covering terrorism will help in the long term to dissuade future attacks - this is a common theory by many governments. But when members of the media are being hindered via other means, sometimes after an event has happened because their government expects the coverage to be a problem, then something is definitely wrong. The closing paragraph of the article hammers the point of a lack of press freedom home - I won't steal any of the CSM's thunder by reposting it here.

EContentMag.com reports that news and information solution Factiva will now include nine publications from Gannett, all focused on U.S. government and military topics.

The Lahontan Valley News has an opinion item Tuesday about how journalism awards might be responsible for "pulling the wool" over the collective eyes of journalists and be part of the reason why the perception of newsgathering and reporting has lost its touch with readers.

Below you will find the transcript from Monday's CBS Evening News segment where anchor Dan Rather discussed today's announcement about the "disputed documents" the network aired almost two weeks ago on the "60 Minutes Wednesday" program.

DAN RATHER: Now, news about CBS News and the questions surrounding documents we aired on this broadcast and on the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes" on September 8th. The documents purported to show that George W. Bush received preferential treatment during his years in the Texas Air National Guard.

At the time, CBS News and this reporter fully believed the documents were genuine. Tonight, after further investigation, we can no longer say that.

The documents were provided to CBS News by a former commander in the Texas National Guard, Bill Burkett. He did not come to us. We went to him -- and asked him for the documents. Burkett is well known in National Guard circles for a long battle over his medical benefits and for trying -- for several years now -- to discredit President Bush's military service record.

Burkett initially told CBS News he got the documents from a fellow GUARDSMAN. But, when we interviewed Burkett this past weekend, he changed his story and told us he got the documents from a different source one we cannot verify.

WHY did Burkett tell CBS News something he now says is not true? We put the question to him.

(TRACK UP)

RATHER: "WHY DID YOU MISLEAD US?"

BILL BURKETT: "WELL, I DIDN'T TOTALLY MISLEAD YOU. I MISLED YOU ON THE ONE INDIVIDUAL. YOU KNOW YOUR STAFF PRESSURED ME TO A POINT TO REVEAL THAT SOURCE."

RATHER: "WELL, WE WERE TRYING TO GET THE CHAIN OF POSSESSION."

BURKETT: "I UNDERSTAND THAT."

RATHER: "AND YOU SAID THAT YOU HAD RECEIVED THEM FROM SOMEONE."

BURKETT: "I UNDERSTAND THAT."
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CBS News...2

RATHER : "WE DID PRESSURE YOU TO SAY WELL, YOU RECEIVED THEM FROM SOMEONE..."

BURKETT: "YES."

RATHER: "AND IT'S TRUE. WE PRESSURED YOU BECAUSE IT WAS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT."

BURKETT: "YES...."

RATHER: "FOR US."

BURKETT: "AND I SIMPLY THREW OUT A NAME THAT WAS BASICALLY I GUESS TO TAKE A LITTLE PRESSURE OFF FOR A MOMENT."

RATHER: "HAVE YOU FORGED ANYTHING?"

BURKETT: "NO SIR."

RATHER: "HAVE YOU FAKED ANYTHING?"

BURKETT: "NO SIR."

RATHER: "BUT YOU DID MISLEAD US."

BURKETT: "YES, I MISLED."

RATHER: "YOU-- YOU LIE-YOU"

BURKETT: "YES, I DID."

RATHER: "YOU LIED TO US. NOW, IF YOU WOULD MISLEAD US ABOUT THAT, WHICH IS CRITICAL, RIGHT, A NEXUS OF THIS, WHY WOULD I OR ANYONE BELIEVE THAT YOU WOULDN'T MISLEAD US ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE?"

BURKETT: "I COULD UNDERSTAND THAT QUESTION. I CAN'T-- THAT'S GONNA HAVE TO BE YOUR JUDGMENT AND ANYBODY ELSE'S."

(VOICE OVER)

BURKETT STILL INSISTS THE DOCUMENTS ARE REAL, BUT NOW SAYS HE WAS IN NO POSITION TO VERIFY THEM.

BURKETT: "I ALSO INSISTED WHEN I SAT DOWN WITH YOUR STAFF IN THE FIRST FACE TO FACE SESSION, BEFORE I GAVE UP ANY DOCUMENTS, I WANTED TO KNOW WHAT YOU WERE GONNA SO WITH THEM. AND I INSISTED THAT THEY BE AUTHENTICATED."

RATHER: The fa